Thinking I'd purchased simply a true crime book, I was astonished to find that this book weaves the later career of Eliot Ness with politics in Cleveland in the l930's and 1940's with the unkown identity of a gruesome serial killer at that time. The author's sense of time and place is terrific. I was swept back to that time in history, almost against my will. And I found this to be far more horrifying a book than it appears. When I was two-thirds of the way done, I found that I absolutely had to close and lock my bedroom window. These crimes may have been committed before I was born, but they're still shocking and terrifying. See if you agree with me that Eliot Ness's take on who committed these crimes is the right one! Horrifying, historical, accurate, mesmerizing, all at once. I recommend it to anyone interested in terrific reading.