The Bourbon King

Starred review from July 29, 2019
The roaring ’20s glisten with vice and danger in this fast-paced portrait of prolific bootlegger George Remus, from biographer Batchelor (Stan Lee: The Man Behind Marvel). The son of German immigrants, Remus (1874–1952) quit school to support the family as a pharmacist, then became a criminal defense attorney notorious for his dramatic courtroom tactics and defense of the “elite of crime” in Chicago. In the 1920s, Remus moved to Cincinnati and, using his knowledge of the medical industry and the loophole allowing whiskey to be distributed for medicinal purposes, worked his way into a near monopoly on the Kentucky bourbon trade in the Midwest with expansions along the East Coast. He divorced one wife, married another, made vast sums of money, bribed officials in the attorney general’s office, was arrested for violations of the Volstead Act, got convicted, and served two years in prison—during which time his second wife fell in love with a high-ranking Prohibition agent, and the two of them spent and lost most of Remus’s millions. Remus shot her dead, defended himself in court, and was acquitted by reason of insanity. Batchelor’s action-packed narrative both entertains and informs with its tales of the corruption of President Warren G. Harding’s attorney general, the bootlegging trade, and the public’s oscillating views of Remus and Prohibition in general. Larger-than-life characters take the reins of this story, a rip-roaring good time for any American history buff or true-crime fan.

September 1, 2019

George Remus (1874-1952) was one of the many larger-than-life figures to emerge from the Prohibition era. A German immigrant who worked as a pharmacist and lawyer, Remus would become the mastermind behind one of the nation's largest illegal liquor distribution systems. Batchelor (Stan Lee) traces Remus's dramatic career, detailing how he used his knowledge of pharmacy and the law to create a quasi-legal operation that allowed for the sale of alcohol for medicinal purposes. Remus liked to show off his vast wealth, and Batchelor suggests him as a possible model for F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby. The story grew even more tragic and bizarre when Remus murdered his ex-wife, who was having an affair with a federal agent. Remus served as his own attorney and was acquitted at trial on the ground of temporary insanity. VERDICT Compared with William Cook's King of the Bootleggers, this is a more comprehensive look at Remus's life, though Cook's work more closely examines its subject's political connections and has deeper coverage of his courtroom performances. Recommended primarily for readers already interested in nonfiction accounts of organized crime or Prohibition.--Nicholas Graham, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

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