LINE UP TOUGH GUYS

We've read all of these stories before and in much greater detail, and in Goulart's survey-synthesis of famous 20th century ganglords the accent is on pop culture and crime. The line-up includes Capone, Arnold Rothstein, Legs Diamond, Dillinger, Joe Adonis and Lucky. Irish Owney Madden, for example, a ""youse-guys-better-watchout"" impresario of many murders, heists and bribes, bought into Harlem's Cotton Club in the '20's. Gambler Rothstein wound up in The Great Gatsby as well as Runyon's stories; Al Capone became Little Caesar (Robinson), Scarface (Muni) and The Public Enemy (Cagney) and spawned Plainclothes Tracy, now Dick Tracy. Lucky Luciano made twenty million a year from prostitutes at two bucks a trick, wound up as a New Yorker profile in 1964, and died while discussing his movie biography with a producer... This is all another way of making crime pay off-- in cheap fun; it's quickly written and more quickly read.