Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series

Summary

The model for Meyer Wolfsheim from The Great Gatsby and Guys and Dolls' Nathan Detroit, Arnold Rothstein was an underworld genius, racketeer, rumrunner, political fixer, and criminal mastermind who, as F. Scott Fitzgerald observed, played “with the faith of fifteen million people with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.”

David Piertrusza unearths the canny way Rothstein fixed the 1919 World Series and unravels the mystery of A.R.’s November 1928 murder in a Times Square hotel room. Transporting listeners onto Jazz Age Broadway with its thugs, bookies, denizens of the race tracks, showgirls, political movers-and-shakers and stars of the Golden Age of Sports, this is a biography of the godfather of organized crime in America, who reigned supreme when the fast buck ruled and violence stalked the streets of Gotham.