Supermob, Part I

For Christmas this year, Alison Richardson gave me Gus Russo's Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers. I'm still working my way through it--it's a little like trying to drink from a fire hydrant--but it traces the myriad connections between the Chicago underworld and mid-century Southern California business, politics, and organized crime. Lots of material, too, about Las Vegas, labor racketeering, and just about anything else Russo could cram in there. More on this unwieldy but absorbing book in a later post.