The Ghosts of Eden Park

July 1, 2019

Abbott (Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy) chronicles the involvement of several vivid Jazz Age figures in a famed scandal and courtroom trial. George Remus, "King of the Bootleggers," was a German immigrant who practiced law before turning to bootlegging. He began a fateful affair with his legal secretary, Augusta Imogene Holmes, in 1920. The two occupied center stage in Cincinnati, enjoying the perks of their considerable windfall; they were known for lighting cigars with $100 bills. Remus was adept at using his knowledge of the legal system to sidestep the Volstead Act, until his hubris got the better of him and an earnest U.S. Assistant Attorney General, Mabel Walker Willebrandt, nailed him for numerous violations. Willebrandt's protégé, Franklin Dodge, encountered Remus during this two-year stint in a penitentiary while working undercover. Dodge resigned and embarked on an affair with Imogene, dissolving her husband's assets and plotting his demise. But Remus gets there first, leading to his trial for Imogene's murder; bits of testimony are interspersed throughout. VERDICT Abbot keeps up the momentum and suspense while giving her substantial characters their due. Recommended for fans of historical true crime, such as Mary Cummings's Saving Sin City; fans of HBO's Boardwalk Empire will also devour this juicy read.--Barrie Olmstead, Lewiston P.L., ID

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2019
Crimes and misdemeanors animate a spirited history. Attracted once again to sin and subversion, Abbott (Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War, 2014, etc.) sets her lively new tale during Prohibition, when George Remus, a teetotaling lawyer-turned-bootlegger, amassed an empire so large that even he could not keep count of the distilleries and drug companies--liquor could be sold legally with a doctor's prescription--that yielded his fortune. Deposits to his savings accounts "averaged $50,000 a day, in an era when the average salary was $1,400 a year," Abbott reveals. "The money came in so fast that Remus couldn't deposit it all, forcing him to carry as much as $100,000 in his pockets at any given time." He indulged in real estate, automobiles, and antiques, and his attractive young wife shopped with abandon, buying items such as solid gold service plates, diamonds, and furs. The family's mansion was decorated with Persian rugs, European oil paintings, and, in the parlor, a solid gold piano. Their parties were notoriously extravagant: One New Year's Eve, guests received diamonds and gold as party favors. With politicians, legislators, city police, and Prohibition officers taking bribes of cash and liquor, Remus felt confidently above the law. However, he did not account for the dogged perseverance of Mabel Walker Willebrandt, an ambitious Department of Justice prosecutor determined to enforce the 18th Amendment. With the help of a team of agents known as Mabelmen, she succeeded, landing Remus in jail, where, at one point, he had a maid to cook and serve meals for him, fellow prisoners, and select visitors. Remus would be a colorful subject just on the basis of his flagrant bootlegging, but his malfeasance came to include something much more serious: murder. Drawing on government files, archives, newspaper articles, and trial transcripts--one of which was more than 5,000 pages long--Abbott recounts in tense, vivid detail Remus' entanglement in intrigue, betrayal, madness, and violence. An entertaining tale ripped from the headlines of Jazz Age America.

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Starred review from July 15, 2019
Bestseller Abbott (Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War) revives an obscure cause célèbre in this engrossing true crime narrative. Relying heavily on primary sources, including trial transcripts, Abbott asserts in an author’s note that she “accurately depict detailed scenes and entire conversations and reveal characters’ thoughts, gestures, personalities, and histories.” That approach pays off from the start with a dramatic prologue set in 1927, in which a man’s pursuit of a woman in Cincinnati’s Eden Park ends with a gunshot. The reader later learns that they are George Remus, an attorney turned bootlegger, and his wife, Imogene. Prohibition, which became law in 1920, provided Remus with a golden opportunity to capitalize on the nation’s thirst for alcohol. Corrupt government officials at the highest levels of the Justice Department abetted his illegal schemes in exchange for bribes. The book’s hero is pioneering prosecutor Mabel Willebrandt, the U.S. assistant attorney general in charge of enforcing the Volstead Act, who was able to convict Remus in 1922 for violating the act. After Remus completed his sentence, frictions between him and Imogene led to her murder; that crime set the stage for an extraordinary trial in which Remus both represented himself—and asserted that he should be found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity. This real-life page-turner will appeal to fans of Erik Larson. Agent: Simon Lipskar, Writers House.