A VIBRANT AND VIOLENT TIME: DIETRICH KALTEIS' DIRTY LITTLE WAR

Dietrich Kalteis got my attention last year with his book Crooked. It followed the true Depression era exploits of The Barker-Karpis Gang. This year, he goes back a decade and even bigger in Dirty Little War.

It begins in 1920 New Orleans, when Huck Waller, a bare knuckles fighter, jumps in a box car after he knifes a pimp. He lands in Chicago, wide open due to Prohibition, He gets some fights run by The Northside Gang. One of its members, Doyle, befriends him and offers him a job to drive alcohol over from Canada. Seeing it as an easier way to turn a buck, he takes it. Even with gunfire from Johnny Torrio's South Side boys, he finds the money better. He also hires himself out as security for the Yellow Cab Company in its war with Checker that started with poaching each others fares and escalated into brawls and bullets.

Huck goes up in money and status with one foot in The Northside Gang, becoming a trusted advisor. He sets up a makeshift family with the street orphan who teaches him to read and the nickel dancer who nursed him after a beating. However, the war with The Southside grows, especially after Torrio brings in an enforcer from New York- Al Capone.

Kalteis cuts through the decade with his tight machine gun prose and crisp dialogue. He paints a word mural of gangsters, gamblers, political bosses, labor organizers (both idealistic and corrupt), taxi drivers, ambitious molls and other colorful Runyonesque types that made Chicago a legend in this period. The fights and shootouts pop with style and brutality. He keeps us locked in as Huck struggles not to be engulfed by the history he has dove into.

A Dirty Little War roars through The Roaring Twenties Not only does it portray the times, Dietrich Kalteis taps into the in the style of the writers of the time from Fitzgerald to Hammett. After putting it down, you'll feel like pouring a stiff drink and putting on some hot jazz. Just don't pick up a Tommy gun.