Exuberant ... Write[s] in a breezy, fast-paced style. [He] revel[s] in the Dickensian details of the demimonde — the colorful lingo, intricate professional techniques and social snobberies of the criminal classes — looping through decades of political and economic history that spills over into chatty footnotes.
Slater...has produced a deeply researched and fluidly written chronicle ... A useful corrective to the conventional picture of what life was like on those mean streets.
is book is, as one would expect from a journalist, colorful and dramatic. It’s written in a light and folksy manner that brims with historiographical clichés, invented dialogue, and memorable personalities ... While Slater’s book is true, it does not explore how Jews’ criminal behavior was influenced by culture and religion, nor does it compare city leaders’ response to crime by Jews to crime committed by other ethnic groups. Some readers might be disappointed by its failure to examine the larger economic and social factors that led to Jews’ participation in crime. However, The Incorruptibles is sure to attract a wide audience.
New York City’s East Side at the turn of the 20th century comes vibrantly alive ... A compelling crime story, colorful history and an ominous warning about antisemitism.
Riveting ... The author yields not just a gripping crime story—though it certainly is that—but also a richly detailed, informal social history of New York between the Gilded Age and the Jazz Age that, apart from its scholarly rigor, is also highly readable.
