Deadly Valentines: The Story of Capone’s Henchman “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn and Louise Rolfe, His Blonde Alibi

Part history of the Capone era and part biography of one of Big Al’s top enforcers and his quintessential gangster’s moll, Gusfield’s book gives a thoroughly researched and colorful account of a bullet-ridden Jazz Age Chicago. Vincenzo Gibaldi immigrated from Sicily to the U.S. with his family as a four-year-old in 1906. Young Vincent was drawn to boxing and, taking the alias “Jack McGurn,” had moderate success in Chicago as an amateur welterweight. But McGurn’s other profession, with Al Capone’s “Outfit,” proved more lucrative: with his baby face and easygoing manner, McGurn was treated like an honorary Capone brother, known for precise and well-planned hits. He emerged into the spotlight when seven members of George “Bugs” Moran’s rival gang were brutally murdered in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. While no definitive proof exists that McGurn was one of the gunmen—Louise Rolfe, his hedonistic young lover embodying everything seductive about the Jazz Age, provided his alibi—Gusfield makes a strong case that he planned the attack. Despite the narrative being written annoyingly in the present tense, Gusfield portrays both McGurn and Rolfe as alluringly flawed and deadly in their own ways. 50 b&w photos. (Apr.)