Bullets for Dead Hoods : an Encyclopedia of Chicago Mobsters, c. 1933

Writer, curator, and gallerist John Corbett struck thrifter’s gold at a going-out-of business Chicago junk shop when he stumbled onto a browned and brittle manuscript intimately documenting the Chicago mob of the early 1930s. The tone of its typewritten and hand-annotated pages immediately
grabbed him—sensationalistic and funny, they read like an embellished police blotter, naming names, listing addresses, and recounting crimes. For all of the dossier’s texture and personality, however, Corbett could find no clues to the identity of its author.