Chicago: A Novel: Novel of Prohibition

Jackie Weiss, Mike Hodge wrote, had died of a broken heart, it being broken by several slugs from a .45 . . . From his perch at the Chicago Tribune, Mike Hodge—scarred veteran of the Great War—had gotten to know the underbelly of the metropolis like few others. Politicians, gangsters, prostitutes, bootleggers, opium addicts, jazz musicians, and con artists—he’d observed them all. So perhaps he should have known better when he fell for Annie Walsh, whose family was on preferred terms with those who preferred the back alley. Then again, maybe the man who killed Annie Walsh should have known better than to trifle with Mike Hodge. A big-shouldered, big-trouble thriller set in a mobbed-up 1920s Windy City, Chicago is the first novel in more than two decades from David Mamet, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of The Untouchables and Wag the Dog and Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright of Glengarry Glen Ross. Across the canvas of a city peopled by the corrupt, the cynical, and the deceived, Mamet crafts a wicked and tough saga of retribution and double-cross. Mixing some of his most brilliant fictional creations with actual figures of the era (among them Al Capone), he explores—as no other writer can—questions of honor, deceit, devotion, and revenge. Set in his hometown, Chicago is the book that David Mamet has been building up to for his whole career. From its opening fusillade to its astonishing conclusion, Chicago is that rarest of literary creations: a book that combines spectacular elegance of craft with a kinetic wallop as fierce as the February wind gusting off Lake Michigan. Mike Hodge—veteran of the Great War, big shot of the Chicago Tribune medium fry—probably shouldn’t have fallen in love with Annie Walsh. But then maybe the guys who killed Annie Walsh shouldn’t have messed with Mike Hodge… In Chicago, David Mamet has created a bracing, kaleidoscopic page-turner that roars through the Windy City’s underground on its way to a thunderclap of a conclusion. Here is not only his first novel in more than two decades, but the book he has been building up to for his whole career. Mixing some of his most brilliant fictional creations with actual figures of the era (among them Al Capone), suffused with trademark “Mamet Speak,” richness of voice, pace and brio, and exploring--as no writer can--questions of honor, deceit, revenge and devotion, Chicago is that rarest of literary creations: a book that combines spectacular elegance of craft with a kinetic wallop as fierce as the February wind gusting off Lake Michigan.