Product Description

An exquisitely written novel of love and betrayal, of money and power, set at the apex of that time of glitz and innocence known as the Jazz Age

CINCINNATI, 1927...

Lawyer George Remus became the country's biggest bootlegger, grossing over $80 million until his arrest. Upon his release from prison, he learns that his beautiful wife, Imogene, has left him and that his bank accounts are empty. On the morning of their divorce, he runs her car off the road in the middle of rush hour in Eden Park and shoots her to death.

Shocked and fascinated by this horrible crime, the country gears up for a sensational trial pitting the man known as "the king of the bootleggers" against Chief Prosecutor Charlie Taft, the youngest son of the former president. The trial is a national spectacle, a lens focused on the fabulous rise and fall of the Remus empire and the tragic love story within it, and an attempt to answer some tantalizing questions: What actually happened to the fortune? What are the motives of the federal agent who brought Remus down? What complex emotions and desires, leading ultimately to the ruin of three men, really lie within the heart of the woman known as the Jazz Bird?

Based on a true story, The Jazz Bird is at once a love story, a crime novel, and the tale of the courtroom battle between two powerful men whose respective futures hang in the balance.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2307155 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04
• Format: Large Print
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Amazon.com Review
After three taut, well-crafted contemporary mysteries, Craig Holden turns here to the 1920s, evoking a period rich in glamour and drama in a powerful and elegiac story told with consummate skill. Young Charlie Taft, a prosecutor who's the son of a former president and chief justice, doesn't need to solve the murder of Imogene Remus, the quixotic and exotic wife of Cincinnati bootlegger George Remus. George has already confessed to the crime, and his conviction is all but assured. But as Charlie delves deeper into the tangled history of the stunning socialite who defied her wealthy family to marry Remus and went to extraordinary lengths to free him from prison, he begins to doubt whether the bootlegger is insane, as he claims, or the real victim of his wife's betrayal. Holden brings a fascinating era in American history to life through the creation of complex, multidimensional characters who haunt the reader long after the last page is turned. This is a tour de force from a writer who gets better with every novel. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly
Based on a true story, this deftly written novel by Holden (Four Corners of the Night) delves deep into the murk of the Jazz Age, blending mystery and history in a heady cocktail. Charlie Taft is a prosecutor in late 1920s Cincinnati; he is also the son of William Howard Taft, Supreme Court chief justice and former president. When bootlegger George Remus turns himself in, in October 1927, for shooting his society wife, Imogene, Charlie thinks he's been handed a career maker. But all is not as simple as it seems. Through testimony and Imogene's diaries, Charlie becomes fascinated with the dead woman. Dubbed the Jazz Bird by Remus's men, she is a fabulous creation brilliant, beautiful, extraordinarily intelligent, na‹ve and deeply loved by her husband. Remus is a fascinating character, too, his fortune made by purchasing alcohol allowance certificates from pharmaceutical corporations. Forced into prison in 1924, Remus is saved by Imogene, who goes to humiliating lengths to get him released, but the nature of her act leads him to believe he was betrayed. Is this why he killed her, or is he truly insane, as he pleads in court? Throughout the effective trial sequences, the reader learns the story slowly, as Charlie does, and there are twists to the very end. The poignancy of the story lies in Holden's uncanny ability to make his creations believable, flaws and all, and in his evocation of the charged and sultry 1920s. Agent, Gail Hochman. 8-city author tour.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
A belle of the 1920s, Imogene "Jazz Bird" Ring Remus had it all: she was the well-educated daughter of a prominent Cincinnati lawyer, an acknowledged beauty, and the wife of renowned bootlegger George Remus. Her life was a blur of lavish parties and legal mazes as she alternately lives it up and lives in hiding as her husband dodged the Feds. Then, on the afternoon of October 6, 1927, George shot Imogene, left her dying in the street, and calmly drove to the police station to confess. Holden (The River Sorrow) has marvelously blended history, romance, and legal thriller in this re-creation of the sensational trial that followed. (The story is based on real events.) Did the bootlegger do it to avoid a messy and costly divorce? The chief prosecutor was Charlie Taft, youngest son of the former President; the witness list was a roll call of local high society; and the proceedings revealed an amazing web of disappearing fortunes, steamy love triangles, and governmental manipulation, set against a backdrop of murder, illicit booze, and hot jazz. Reminiscent of E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime, this is an exceptional period piece that portrays the roller-coaster life of the Prohibition era with color, verve, and consistency. Holden's best work, it is highly recommended for all fiction collections. Susan Clifford Braun, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Sweet Singing Imogene
This is the first work by Craig Holden that I have read; it most certainly will not be the last. I am not familiar enough with the historical basis for this book, so I comment purely as a reader. "The Jazz Bird", is a wicked book, from a large cast of characters whose loyalty cannot be placed until the book's end, an immense fortune built by prohibition, and the co-star of the book Imogene.

Imogene is one of the better female players that I have read in quite some time. If the character in the book bears any resemblance to who this woman truly was, there must be additional books written already, or more will certainly follow.

The author reconstructs the 1920's with great detail, right down to noting the Rag Time Piano Music of Scott Joplin. If you recall the music, you may also remember the movie that brought it back when Paul Newman and Robert Redford gave classic performances in, "The Sting". This work is much darker than the movie I reference, but if the time period appeals to you, the book will as well. Prohibition parties where 100-dollar bills were under the plate of each guest, or perhaps dozens of new cars awaited the guests who stayed the night as gifts. Add to all of this Imogene, daughter of the privileged class who marries the largest rumrunner, systematically destroys all she was brought up to be a part of, and does it with either the greatest calculation, or the most grievous unintended consequence.

The book is a classic roaring 20's tragedy that you know is going to happen but Craig Holden brings you there through a series of brilliant characters, and the most circuitous of routes.

Passion and obsession.
With his sheer assurance as a storyteller, Mr. Holden has taken on the daunting task of recreating the provocative era of the 1920s. He not only recreates the era, but the real life story of one of the most dramatic and complex love affairs in American history. The author has conveyed an aura of authenticity with his rich character development. I was deeply drawn to the love affair between a gangster, George Remus, and a woman of high society, Imogene Ring. Charlie Taft's obsessive interest in a dead woman adds a wry, atypical twist to the standard love triangle theme. The story illustrates the delicacy, the violence, and the destruction of love. There is a fascinating duality of permissiveness counterpoised with conventionality interwoven into a rich tale filled with obsessive love, organized crime, politics, motives, insanity, and betrayal. This story of passion and obsession is lit by the bright light of humanity and history. I could not put this book down. Highly recommended for those who love writing that far exceeds the ordinary.

Colorful but unbelievable...
Jazz Bird takes place in the 1920's in the midst of the prohibition. The story starts of with the murder of Imogene Remus, the wife of a convicted bootlegger. Her husband, George Remus, confesses as the killer but he seems like an unlikely suspect as he's always been deeply in love with his wife...

During the trial their story unfolds a twisted and complex tale of betrayel and manipulation...until the end when you find out the truth about what happened to their relationship and the day of Imogene's murder.

The characters are colorful enough to keep you reading but the ending goes no where. Entertaining but not dazzling. I give this one 3 stars...