A tough kid with a heart of gold, Al "Bummy" Davis grew up in the streets of Brownsville, New York on the fringes of the Jewish mob during the 20's and 30's-thanks to his older brother, a feared racketeer. But as much as he resisted the underworld of Murder, Inc. by becoming a championship fighter and a Brownsville hero, he never did escape the Jewish Mob's shadow. Though he repeatedly stood up to mob kingpins, Bummy suffered a spectacular fall from grace as a result of a smear campaign by the press. Ron Ross' Bummy Davis vs. Murder, Inc. is not just about one Jewish boxer, his meteoric rise to fame, and victimization by the press. Bummy's life was intertwined with the Great Depression, the survival of the Brooklyn Jewish immigrant population during Prohibition, and the inevitable offshoot of Prohibition-Murder Inc., one of American history's most notorious band of killers. Ron Ross portrays an important historical time period, an enigmatic Jewish subculture, and the surprising juxtaposition of a generation of Jews and their talent for boxing. Bummy Davis vs. Murder, Inc. features a cast of colorful villains whom you'll love to hate, a boxing legend who was the unwitting pawn of fate, and the human drama of the boxing world. With his vivid, street-smart Damon Runyonesque writing style, Ron Ross redeems a tragic hero who fought the pull of one of the most brutal groups of killers to grace the twentieth century.

BUMMY DAVIS VS. MURDER, INC. The life of Al "Bummy" Davis was so intricately interwoven with a time, a place and a unique phenomenon, that he became the personification of a slice of history. His is the story of an immigrant Jewish community whose old country fears, values and traditions served as the nurturing grounds of both the Jewish mob world and a boxing world dominated by warriors wearing satin trunks embroidered with the Star of David. Born as Albert Davidoff to observant Jewish parents one week after Prohibition became the law of the land, Al "Bummy" Davis was a guy who drew a lousy hand. Admired and respected - even idolized by those who knew him, he was a pariah to much of the rest of the world. He was a tough kid with a big heart who became fair game for the media hucksters and promotional hustlers who vilified and maligned him in their effort to satisfy the cravings of their Depression-era public that thirsted for heroes. There cannot be heroes without villains to feed off. Coming from the same tradition-bound immigrant ghetto, direct spawns of Prohibition, was a psychopathic band of killers who came to be known as Murder, Inc. Getting their start as teenagers hired as strongarm-men for the then-mob-warlords of Brownsville, Abe "Kid Twist" Reles and his young associates, Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss and Martin "Buggsy" Goldstein, with devious minds and blazing guns fueled by insatiable greed, eventually deposed their bosses. It did not take long for the hardworking Jewish storeowners, peddlers and businessmen to realize that what they had run from in the old country, being terrorized and plundered by hordes of hateful Cossacks had once again caught up with them in their new homeland, turning their dreams to nightmares. Only here it was worse. In the old country they were tormented from those outside their community. Here they found a new breed of young Cossacks who attacked from within the walls of their own homes. Abe Reles and his cohorts feasted upon the friends, neighbors and shopkeepers of their own parents. No one was exempt. Bummy was not looking to be a hero or champion any causes. He was simply a guy who did not want to be pushed around. And when it came to pushing around, that's what this Jewish mob did best. With an uncontrollable hair-trigger temper as his trade-mark, it seemed inevitable that Bummy Davis and Murder, Inc. were on a collision course. Unable to understand a world that shunned him, he stood up to it eyeball to eyeball, jaw-to-jaw and his inevitable clash with Murder, Inc. results in a breathtaking encounter and an historic result that could never have been predicted.

Every lawyer wants to be a good lawyer. They want to do right by their clients, contribute to the professional community, become good colleagues, interact effectively with people of all persuasions, and choose the right cases. All of these skills and behaviors are important, but they spring from hard-to-identify foundational qualities necessary for good lawyering. After focusing for three years on getting high grades and sharpening analytical skills, far too many lawyers leave law school without a real sense of what it takes to be a good lawyer. In The Good Lawyer, Douglas O. Linder and Nancy Levit combine evidence from the latest social science research with numerous engaging accounts of top-notch attorneys at work to explain just what makes a good lawyer. They outline and analyze several crucial qualities: courage, empathy, integrity, diligence, realism, a strong sense of justice, clarity of purpose, and an ability to transcend emotionalism. Many qualities require apportionment in the right measure, and achieving the right balance is difficult. Lawyers need to know when to empathize and also when to detach; courage without an appreciation of consequences becomes recklessness; working too hard leads to exhaustion and mistakes. And what do you do in tricky situations, where the urge to deceive is high? How can you maintain focus through a mind-taxing (or mind-numbing) project? Every lawyer faces these problems at some point, but if properly recognized and approached, they can be overcome. It's not easy being good, but this engaging guide will serve as a handbook for any lawyer trying not only to figure out how to become a better--and, almost always, more fulfilled--lawyer.

In the 1920s and 30s, anti-Semitism was rife in the United States and Europe. Jews needed symbols of strength and demonstrations of courage against their enemies, and they found both in two champions of boxing: Max Baer and Barney Ross. Baer was the only Jewish heavyweight champion in the twentieth century, while Ross was considered one of the greatest welterweight and lightweight champions of the era. Although their careers never crossed paths, their boxing triumphs played a common role in lifting the spirits of persecuted Jews. In Max Baer and Barney Ross: Jewish Heroes of Boxing, Jeffrey Sussman chronicles the lives of two men whose successful bouts inside the ring served as inspiration for Jewish fans across the country and around the world. Though they came from very different backgrounds—Baer grew up on his family’s ranch in California, while Ross roamed the tough streets of Chicago and was a runner for Al Capone—both would bask in the limelight as boxing champions. Their stories include legendary encounters with such opponents as Jimmy McLarnin (known as the Jew Killer), Max Schmeling (Hitler’s favorite athlete), and Primo Carnera (a sad giant controlled and mistreated by gangsters). While recounting the exploits of these two men, the author also paints an evocative picture of boxing and the crucial role it played in an era of anti-Semitism. A vivid and engaging look at these two heroes and the difficult era in which they lived, Max Baer and Barney Ross will appeal to boxing fans, sports historians, and anyone interested in Jewish history.

With a thrilling, fast-paced narrative, award-winning journalist Douglas Perry vividly captures the sensationalized circus atmosphere that gave rise to the concept of the celebrity criminal- and gave Chicago its most famous story. The Girls of Murder City recounts two scandalous, sex-fueled murder cases and how an intrepid "girl reporter" named Maurine Watkins turned the beautiful, media-savvy suspects-"Stylish Belva" and "Beautiful Beulah"-into the talk of the town. Fueled by rich period detail and a cast of characters who seemed destined for the stage, The Girls of Murder City is a crackling tale that simultaneously presents the freewheeling spirit of the Jazz Age and its sober repercussions.