"Eight-year-old Kevin McCallister has become the man of the house overnight! Accidentally left behind when his family rushes off on a Christmas vacation, Kevin gets busy decorating the house for the holidays. But he's not decking the halls with tinsel and holly. Two bumbling burglars are trying to break in, and Kevin's rigging a bewildering battery of booby traps to welcome them!"--Container.

At a time when crimes of passion result in celebrity headlines, nightclub sensation Velma Kelly and spotlight-seeking Roxie Hart both find themselves on Chicago's famed Murderess Row. They also share Billy Flynn, the town's slickest lawyer with a talent for turning notorious defendants into local legends.

"Although much has been written about Al Capone, there has not been--until now--a complete history of organized crime in Chicago during Prohibition. This exhaustively researched book covers the entire period from 1920 to 1933. Author John J. Binder, a recognized authority on the history of organized crime in Chicago, discusses all the important bootlegging gangs in the city and the suburbs and also examines the other major rackets, such as prostitution,...

Frankie Machine, a veteran of the Second World War, returns to Chicago's Northwest side with a morphine habit. Nicknamed the 'kid with the golden arm', Frankie is an aspiring drummer by day and an illicit card-dealer by night. In Molly, an old flame, he sees the chance for redemption, for hard work and success - but the demons that chase Frankie are not quite ready to let go. Nelson Algren's critically acclaimed and enormously powerful novel probes...

Frank is a professional safecracker. He wants to quit to start a new life, but the mobsters disagree.

This book provides a comprehensive sociological explanation for the emergence and continuation of organized crime in Chicago. Tracing the roots of political corruption that afforded protection to gambling, prostitution, and other vice activity in Chicago and other large American cities, Robert M. Lombardo challenges the dominant belief that organized crime in America descended directly from the Sicilian Mafia. According to this widespread "alien

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The story of one year in Chicago's Cook County Criminal Courthouse, the busiest felony courthouse in the country, shown through the eyes of the men and women who experience it, not only in the courtroom but in the lockup, the jury room, the judge's chambers, the spectators' gallery.

Bob Cooley was the Chicago Mafia's "mechanic"-a fixer of court cases. During the 1970s and '80s, Cooley bribed judges, court clerks, and cops to keep his Mob clients-hit men, bookies, racketeers, and crooked pols-out of jail. Paid handsomely for his services, he lived fast and enjoyed the protection of the men he served. He had enough money to blow on all the vices the Windy City could offer, and enough standing among mobsters to know he would never...

Traces the key figures in Chicago's underworld from the early twentieth century to 2003, describing their pivotal roles in organized crime and gangs, their typically brutal methods, and their powerful personalities.

Countless criminals have made their mark on Chicago and the surrounding communities. Chicago Sun-Times journalist Jon Seidel takes readers back in time to the days when H. H. Holmes lurked in his "Murder Castle" and guys named Al Capone and John Dillinger ruled the underworld. Drawing upon years of reporting, and with special access to the Chicago Daily News and Chicago Sun-Times archives, Jon Seidel explains how men like Nathan Leopold, Richard Loeb,...