First published 1985
Marcus Gorman watches from his law office as another headline screams about his most dangerous client. The promising attorney has thrown away his political future to represent Jack "Legs" Diamond, the flashiest gangster in 1920s Albany. Gorman tells himself he craves the raw excitement that Diamond's world offers, but he knows he's lying to himself about his motives. Diamond and his showgirl lover Kiki Roberts live like blazing stars, grabbing headlines with their wild parties and violent escapades. Gorman becomes their chronicler and enabler, drawn deeper into a criminal empire built on bootlegging and bullets. As Diamond's enemies multiply and the law closes in, Gorman must decide how far he'll follow his charismatic client into darkness. This is a story about the magnetic pull of dangerous men and the respectable people who can't resist their orbit.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, crime
Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, moral-ambiguity, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Albany
Period: 1920s
Hardcover · Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag
Content warnings: violence