Crooked The Roaring '20s Tale of a Corrupt Attorney General, a Crusading Senator, and the Birth of the American Political Scandal

by Masters, Nathan

• ISBN13: 9780306826139
• ISBN10: 0306826135
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2023-03-21
• Publisher: Hachette Books

Summary

Winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Prestigious "Best Fact Crime" Award, the riveting, forgotten narrative of the most corrupt attorney general in American history and the maverick senator who stopped at nothing to take him down


Many tales from the Jazz Age reek of crime and corruption. But perhaps the era’s greatest political fiasco—one that resulted in a nationwide scandal, a public reckoning at the Department of Justice, the rise of J. Edgar Hoover, and an Oscar-winning film—has long been lost to the annals of history. In Crooked, Nathan Masters restores this story of murderers, con artists, secret lovers, spies, bootleggers, and corrupt politicians to its full, page-turning glory.

Newly elected to the Senate on a promise to root out corruption, Burton "Boxcar Burt" Wheeler sets his sights on ousting Attorney General Harry Daugherty, puppet-master behind President Harding’s unlikely rise to power. Daugherty is famous for doing whatever it takes to keep his boss in power, and his cozy relations with bootleggers and other scofflaws have long spawned rumors of impropriety. But when his constant companion and trusted fixer, Jess Smith, is found dead of a gunshot wound in the apartment the two men share, Daugherty is suddenly thrust into the spotlight, exposing the rot consuming the Harding administration to a shocked public.

Determined to uncover the truth in the ensuing investigation, Wheeler takes the prosecutorial reins and subpoenas a rogue’s gallery of witnesses—convicted felons, shady detectives, disgraced officials—to expose the attorney general’s treachery and solve the riddle of Jess Smith’s suspicious death. With the muckraking senator hot on his trail, Daugherty turns to his greatest weapon, the nascent Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose eager second-in-command, J. Edgar Hoover, sees opportunity amidst the chaos.

Packed with political intrigue, salacious scandal, and no shortage of lessons for our modern era of political discord, Nathan Masters’ thrilling historical narrative shows how this intricate web of inconceivable crookedness set the stage for the next century of American political scandals.

Author Biography

Nathan Masters writes blockbuster nonfiction stories about the past, resurrecting personalities that time forgot too soon. Based on original primary-source research, his work has appeared in many publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, the scholarly journal Public Historian, and the digital longform magazine Truly*Adventurous. “Pillars of Fire,” his true-life story about America’s first policewoman, who infiltrated a notorious cult to locate a missing person, is currently in development at Amazon Studios as a feature film starring Rachel Brosnahan. Since 2016, Nathan has hosted and produced Lost L.A., an Emmy Award-winning public television series from KCET, which explores how rare artifacts from Southern California’s archives can unlock hidden and often-surprising stories from the region’s past. Nathan works at the University of Southern California Libraries and lives in the San Jacinto Mountains with his wife, the author and screenwriter Kseniya Melnik, and their son.