The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre
by William J. Helmer and Arthur J. Bilek
During Prohibition, Chicago’s Beer Wars turned the city into a battleground, secured its reputation as gangster capital of the world, and laid the foundation for nationally organised crime. Bootlegger bloodshed was greater there than anywhere else. The machine-gun murders of seven men on the morning of February 14, 1929, by killers dressed as cops became the gangland crime of the century. Since then it has been featured in countless histories, biographies, movies, and television specials. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, however, is the first book-length treatment of the subject. Unlike other accounts, it challenges the commonly held assumption that Al Capone decreed the slayings to gain supremacy in the Chicago underworld. The authors assert the deed was a case of bad timing and poor judgement by a secret crew from St. Louis known to Capone’s mostly Italian mob as the American boys.
With Valentine’s Day just a day away, the barrage of red roses and chocolates, cards and teddy bears is in full swing. Romance is in the air for some, which I’m sure is inspiring many readers to pull down romance books from the shelves.
As someone who doesn’t often enjoy romance novels, I usually don’t try to coordinate my reading with Valentine’s Day. This year, however, I was inspired to do something a little different and go in the complete opposite direction of fluffy romance novels by reading a true crime book about the brutal massacre of seven people on Valentine’s Day 1929 that marked the beginning of the end for notorious gangster Al Capone.
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre by William J. Helmer and Arthur J. Bilek set out to recount the tale of the massacre and dispel some of the widely believed rumors surrounding the murders made popular by movies and biographies over the decades. As someone who wasn’t very familiar with the massacre to begin with, I went into this book without any preconceived ideas.
The scope of The St. Valentine’s Massacre was surprisingly far reaching. At around 300 pages, I’d expected the focus to be on just the massacre, including the build up to it and the investigation after. It was certainly what the book revolved around, but there was a focus on the environment of Chicago in the Twenties that got more attention than I’d expected. I really enjoyed this, though. The authors put the massacre into perspective and context by delving into Chicago’s corrupt political and criminal environment as well as the rise of gangsters, including Al Capone and George “Bugs” Moran, and wars between gangs. It was fascinating. Chicago of the Twenties was incredibly corrupt, with government officials and police all on the gangs’ payrolls. Gangsters and racketeers fixed elections, got out of arrests regularly, kept the city “wet” (stocked with bootlegged alcohol) and kept the city running “safely” in their own way since their organized crime led to less street crime. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre packs a lot of information—from Prohibition and how it was a major factor in the rising power of gangs to the invention and use of the Tommy Gun—into 300 pages and I’ve come away from it with a lot more knowledge and understanding of how Chicago operated during that time and just how complex gang politics led to the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
The book doesn’t just lay out the details of the massacre and the control various gangs had over Chicago, though. It includes reactions to the massacre and how newspapers reported on it with actual headlines and snippets of articles that demonstrate the attitude and thinking of the time. It covers the police reaction and response, the investigation and subsequent political changes that came as a result of the public’s unhappiness with the police’s inability to convict anybody for the number of gang murders that had been steadily growing since the beginning of the Twenties, and how the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre led to the demise of Al Capone. Using information not available at the time and a manuscript from a gangster’s wife detailing her husband’s life in Capone’s Syndicate, the authors also bring forth the evidence supporting their theory that it was Capone’s American Boys who actually pulled the triggers and killed the seven men February 14th, 1929.
While The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was an intriguing book, I don’t think it was perfectly constructed. At times it was quite confusing because an event would be mentioned in enough detail that I’d assume that was all that was being said on that topic…until a few pages or chapters later when it was brought up again and delved into in greater detail. While the greater detail was appreciated, it felt like there was too much back and forth between events and timelines. There were several times where I thought, “Wait, didn’t we just cover this?” It was often redundant. Another issue that caused confusion was the names used. Gangsters have a lot of nicknames and aliases—and this book used them all. With such a large cast of people talked about, it was difficult keeping track of who was who when the different names were used at different times, often with the true name or aliases in parentheses, but still. It could’ve been handled in a less confusing manner. The book would’ve benefitted greatly from a character list to help keep all the names straight.
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was certainly a fascinating, enlightening read. I learned about a lot more than just the massacre itself and am glad I read this book. If you’re interested in true crime and the gangsters of the 1920s, I recommend this book to you. It’s not perfect and needed to be a bit more organized, but it’s full of information and is an interesting account of the unprecedented and still unsolved St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929.
3/5
Are you interested in reading about the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre? Let me know what you think in the comments!
Thanks for reading,
Madison