 | Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America by Edward Behr
Buy new: $10.19 / Used from: $3.48 A nice introduction to the law that made crime a big business.
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 | Mafia, U.S.A by Nicholas Gage
Buy used from: $0.54 A collection of essays by different authors, some better than others, that offer a good introduction to the subject.
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 | The Mob: 200 Years of Organized Crime in New York by Virgil W. Peterson
Buy used from: $3.85 This places the history of 20th century organized crime in NYC in a longer historical context.
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 | The Big Bankroll: The Life And Times Of Arnold Rothstein by Leo Katcher
Buy new: $18.00 / Used from: $9.95 A valuable study of a pivotal figure in the development of organized crime as a big business on the East Coast.
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| Kill the Dutchman!: The story of Dutch Schultz by Paul Sann
Buy used from: $5.64 A gripping portrait of the Beer Baron of the Bronx, a key figure in the New York crime scene in the 1920s and '30s.
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| Jack 'Legs' Diamond: Anatomy of a Gangster by Gary Levine
Buy used from: $12.00 A chilling account of one of the more colorful bootlegging and dope-dealing gangsters of the 1920s.
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 | Little Man: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life by Robert Lacey
Buy used from: $0.01 This is a great biography of the legendary gangster, and gets beyond the myths to the real human being.
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| The last testament of Lucky Luciano by Martin A Gosch
Buy used from: $3.98 A fascinating, although self-serving, autobiography by the infamous gangster, now in exile in Italy, just before his death in 1962.
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 | The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America by Albert Fried
Buy new: $27.84 / Used from: $21.56 From the immigrant slums of the Lower East Side to wealth and power on a national scale, and subsequent decline, this penetrating account explores the rise and fall of the Jewish gangster.
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 | The Purple Gang: Organized Crime in Detroit 1910-1945 (Gangsters and Rum Runners) by Paul Kavieff
Buy used from: $28.99 A lively account of one of the most notorious bootlegging gangs of the 1920s.
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 | The Violent Years: Prohibition and the Detroit Mobs (Gangsters and Rum Runners) by Paul Kavieff
Buy used from: $34.99 This book, with "the Purple Gang", offers a highly readable treatment of the ethnic-based mobs and gang wars in Detroit during Prohibition.
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 | The Rise and Fall of the Cleveland Mafia: Corn Sugar and Blood by Rick Porrello
Buy new: $16.50 / Used from: $7.94 n informative and often sensational account of the Sugar War in 1920s Cleveland.
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 | Murder, Inc.: The Story of the Syndicate by Burton B. Turkus
Buy used from: $3.00 This account, by the Brooklyn Assistant D.A., gives an inside look at the law enforcement effort to bring down the notorious "Murder Inc."
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| East Side-West Side: Organizing Crime in New York 1930-1950
Buy new: $24.95 / Used from: $17.25 A balanced and sober treatment of organized crime that analyzes it in the context of New York's social, economic, and political life from 1930 to 1950, without giving in to sensationalism.
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 | The Wicked City: Chicago From Kenna To Capone (Illinois) by Curt Johnson
Buy new: $17.95 / Used from: $7.99 A well-researched study of the development of organized crime in Chicago in the context of economic growth and political corruption, from the booming 1880s to the 1930s Depression.
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 | Capone by John Kobler
Buy used from: $1.50 Mr. Kobler's account is a classic, a great place to start reading about the infamous gangster whose name became synonymous with organized crime.
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 | Mr. Capone: The Real - and complete - story of Al Capone by Robert J. Schoenberg
Buy new: $11.56 / Used from: $1.75 A fine and well-researched biography that offers a balanced but fascinating portrait of the celebrity gangster.
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 | Scarface Al and the Crime Crusaders: Chicago's Private War Against Capone by Dennis E. Hoffman
Buy used from: $19.15 When a city's most famous citizen is a gangster, respectable citizens take action, and that's what happened in Chicago in the 1920s. Here is the story.
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| Big Bill Thompson, Chicago, and the Politics of Image by Douglas Bukowski
Buy used from: $49.95 A useful corrective to much of the mythology about Big Bill's administration, without denying for a second the pervasiveness of corruption in 1920s Chicago. A study in 1920s urban machine politics.
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 | The Hollywood Connection: The True Story of Organized Crime in Hollywood by Michael Munn
Buy used from: $16.84 The Mob made its move into Hollywood in the 1930s and '40s; this book offers a tabloid sensibility and highly entertaining but informative look at mobsters and the movie business.
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 | Green Felt Jungle by Ed Reid
Buy new: $27.32 / Used from: $11.83 A sensationalistic but highly informative look at the influence of organized crime and corruption in post-war Las Vegas.
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| The anatomy of organized crime in America; the grim reapers by Ed. Reid
Ed Reid was a sensationalistic pulp writer, but great fun & informative to read; I'd also suggest "The Mistress and the Mafia" about Virginia Hill, a great pulp book about sex, mobsters and betrayal.
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| Captive City by Ovid Demaris
A 1969 investigation into the continuing influence of organized crime and political corruption in Mayor Daley's Chicago.
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| Mobbed Up: Jackie Presser's High-Wire Life in the Teamsters, the Mafia, and the FBI by James Neff
Buy used from: $1.39 Jolting story of a leading Teamster and his ties to organized crime, the FBI, and political corruption during the Nixon era.
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 | The Outfit: The Role of Chicago's Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America by Gus Russo
Buy used from: $3.00 A superb study of how the power of the Capone mob continued and even grew into the 1960s, the mob's decline in the 1970s, and 1980s; but also a call to rethink how we think of organized crime.
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