Synopses & Reviews
A faded newspaperman downs a double Makers Mark and contemplates life as a “ham-and-egger,” a hack. Then one day he finds the scoop of a lifetime in a Chicago basement: diaries belonging to the infamous Judith Campbell Exner. Right, that Judy, the game girl who waltzed into the midst of Americas most powerful politicians, entertainers, and criminals as they conspired to rule America. When Frank Sinatra flew Judy to Hawaii for a weekend of partying, she could hardly have imagined where it would lead her: straight to the White House and the waiting arms of Jack Kennedy. And then came the day that JFK and his brother Bobby asked her to carry a black bag to Chicago, where she was to hand it off to the boss of bosses, Sam Giancana. As our Narrator pieces the notebooks into a coherent story, he finds mob connections, rigged primaries, assassination plots, and trystsand begins to see beyond the tabloid fare to a real woman, adrift and defenseless in a dangerous world where the fates of nations are at stake. As one by one the men Judy loved betrayed her and disappeared, and as the FBI pursued her into a living hell, her diary entries disintegrate along with the beautiful, tough, sweet woman the Narrator has come to know. Who was Exner, after all? Just a gangsters moll? Or a bighearted woman who believed the sky-high promises of the New Frontierand paid the price?
Review
"New Orleans has seldom been stickier, ladies of the evening slinkier, or male violence held at a steadier simmer than in Turners humid crime drama ... This dark, potent novel should be savored slowly, like a stiff Sazerac."
Review
"Whether [Turner is] describing the mournful chorus of the blues coming from hundreds of wretched whores in "cribs" lining Storyvilles back streets or the raucous entertainment offered at various sporting establishments in the district, every scene, however ugly, is presented in rich, ravishing detail."--The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
Francis Muldoon is a special policeman in the notorious Storyville District of New Orleans in 1913. His job is to see that the Districts volatile mixture of sex, alcohol, and gambling doesnt boil over but instead rolls along at a continuous simmer. Once a member of the citys regular police force, he now works for the Districts vice lord, Tom Anderson, patrolling his patrons honky-tonks and saloons and whorehousesboth the high-priced bordellos and the coffinlike cribs where the girls work with only a cot and a washbasin. When Adele, a beautiful singer at the Tuxedo dance hall, draws Francis into a contentious rivalry for her affection, a fatal shootout is the inevitable conclusion, sending the District into a scalding eruption and revealing the central characters for what they are.
Filled with the rich atmosphere of Americas most colorful city, Redemption is the powerfully told tale of a mans efforts to restore the integrity of his soul.
Synopsis
A faded newspaperman downs a double Makers Mark and contemplates life as a “ham-and-egger,” a hack. Then one day he finds the scoop of a lifetime in a Chicago basement: diaries belonging to the infamous Judith Campbell Exner. Right, that Judy, the game girl who waltzed into the midst of Americas most powerful politicians, entertainers, and criminals as they conspired to rule America.
When Frank Sinatra flew Judy to Hawaii for a weekend of partying, she could hardly have imagined where it would lead her: straight to the White House and the waiting arms of Jack Kennedy. And then came the day that JFK and his brother Bobby asked her to carry a black bag to Chicago, where she was to hand it off to the boss of bosses, Sam Giancana. As our Narrator pieces the notebooks into a coherent story, he finds mob connections, rigged primaries, assassination plots, and trysts—and begins to see beyond the tabloid fare to a real woman, adrift and defenseless in a dangerous world where the fates of nations are at stake. As one by one the men Judy loved betrayed her and disappeared, and as the FBI pursued her into a living hell, her diary entries disintegrate along with the beautiful, tough, sweet woman the Narrator has come to know. Who was Exner, after all? Just a gangsters moll? Or a bighearted woman who believed the sky-high promises of the New Frontier—and paid the price?
Synopsis
A down-at-heel journalist stumbles on the diaries of Judith Campbell Exner, paramour to Sinatra, JFK, and Sam Giancana
About the Author
FREDERICK TURNER is the author of seven books of non-fiction and one novel. The recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, he lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.