Bøger af Joe Kraus

The Life And Times Of The USS Manatee And Its Always Ready And Sometimes Willing Crew. It came through World War II, the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, a fire, one of the biggest hurricanes on record, an oil spill, a collision, a run-in with a sitting president, a brush with the King, Elvis Presley, a stow-a-way chicken from Knots Berry Farm, a colossal-sized band-aide on its stern and a hydrogen bomb. Some believe the ship was the target that would have started the Vietnam War if two U.S. destroyers hadn't gotten in the way. It even had Hollywood calling. But wait... there's more.

There's probably no definition of a desert rat other than someone who lives, breathes, and thinks desert. As harsh as things were in their surroundings, they would have it no other way. They came soon after the West was already won, when Indian wars, gunfights, cattle drives, and range disputes were history. For them they came to make their mark in a place nobody else wanted. Most of them were prospectors, but not all. Others tended store, drove wagons, or just were up to no good most of the time. What they all had in common was that they were fixtures, permant implants in the sand. No guidebooks told them how they were to conduct themselves. So they became colorful and crusty to match the land. Along the way they had fun - and a good laugh.

The Kosher Capones tells the fascinating story of Chicago's Jewish gangsters from Prohibition into the 1980s. Author Joe Kraus traces these gangsters through the lives, criminal careers, and conflicts of Benjamin "Zuckie the Bookie" Zuckerman, last of the independent West Side Jewish bosses, and Lenny Patrick, eventual head of the Syndicate's...