The Life and Times of Lepke Buchalter: America's Most Ruthless Labor Racketeer

Kavieff's brisk biography of Louis ""Lepke"" Buchalter, the only major crime boss in U.S. history to be executed, unevenly weaves the labor racketeer's story with that of the bustling early 20th century New York mob scene, resulting in a book that's not quite a biography and not quite an underworld history. Buchalter grew his rackets by foregoing large one-time fees for services rendered-arbitrating, through violence and the threat of violence, ""the differences between labor and capital""-in favor of ""prolonged strikes that increased the chances for everyone to make a profit."" Lepke's association with Murder Inc., ""the enforcement branch of the Supreme Court of the underworld"" that carried out approximately 1,000 murders between 1931-40, Kavieff suggests, further consolidated Lepke's power and amplified his reputation as a treacherous figure, prompting special mob prosecutor Thomas Dewey and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who described Lepke as ""the most dangerous criminal in the U.S.,"" to put bounties on his head. After going underground, Lepke eliminated witnesses who could help prosecutors secure indictments against him until, tricked into believing he could escape Hughes's prosecution, he surrendered to Hoover. Following a contentious legal saga, Lepke was convicted on drug and racketeering charges and for his involvement in the murder of a small-time underworld figure, the crime that landed him in the electric chair in 1944. Though well-researched, Kavieff's account is told in dry, stilted language and suffers from meandering passages, but readers interested in the seedier side of pre-WWII New York will appreciate Kavieff's gritty portrait of the city's underworld.