In Mr. Masters’s telling, the investigation has all the makings of a great film plot, complete with theatrical witnesses, twists, turns and a conclusive, if slightly maddening ending ... Yet for all its resemblance to a mob caper—full of backroom deals, anonymous payments and suspicious deaths—the episode reshaped American government.
Masters sketches indelible portraits of Roaring '20s characters ... The main takeaway is how little has changed ... Most of all we see with aching clarity how unscrupulously unscrupulous men react when they are attacked. It's a sobering read, yet remains immensely entertaining both because of Masters' craft and because it happened so long ago that you can remain detached. Masters never connects the dots between the past and the present, but the ties are apparent.
