American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America's Jack the Ripper

by Daniel Stashower

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

The best true crime books read like a mystery novel. Daniel Stashower's American Demon does exactly that. A 1930s cat-and-mouse plot unfolds as Eliot Ness hunts the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run. This is narrative non-fiction at its best and most suspenseful.

New York Times bestselling author and Edgar Award-winner Daniel Stashower returns with American Demon, a historical true crime starring legendary lawman Eliot Ness.

Boston had its Strangler. California had the Zodiac Killer. And in the depths of the Great Depression, Cleveland had the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run.

On September 5th, 1934, a young beachcomber made a gruesome discovery on the shores of Cleveland’s Lake Erie: the lower half of a female torso, neatly severed at the waist. The victim, dubbed “The Lady of the Lake,” was only the first of a butcher’s dozen. Over the next four years, twelve more bodies would be scattered across the city. The bodies were dismembered with surgical precision and drained of blood. Some were beheaded while still alive.

Terror gripped the city. Amid the growing uproar, Cleveland’s besieged mayor turned to his newly-appointed director of public safety: Eliot Ness. Ness had come to Cleveland fresh from his headline-grabbing exploits in Chicago, where he and his band of “Untouchables” led the frontline assault on Al Capone’s bootlegging empire. Now he would confront a case that would redefine his storied career.

Award-winning author Daniel Stashower shines a fresh light on one of the most notorious puzzles in the annals of crime, and uncovers the gripping story of Ness’s hunt for a sadistic killer who was as brilliant as he was cool and composed, a mastermind who was able to hide in plain sight. American Demon reconstructs this ultimate battle of wits between a hero and a madman.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466837317
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/06/2022
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	20,482
File size:	13 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

DANIEL STASHOWER is a New York Times bestselling author, acclaimed biographer and narrative historian, and winner of the Edgar, Agatha, and Anthony awards, and the Raymond Chandler Fulbright Fellowship in Detective Fiction. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, AARP: The Magazine, and National Geographic Traveler as well as other publications. His books include The Hour of Peril, Teller of Tales, and The Beautiful Cigar Girl.

Daniel Stashower is an acclaimed biographer and narrative historian and winner of the Edgar, Agatha, and Anthony awards, as well as the Raymond Chandler Fulbright Fellowship in Detective Fiction. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, AARP: The Magazine, National Geographic Traveler, and American History as well as other publications.
His books include The Hour of Peril, Teller of Tales, and The Beautiful Cigar Girl.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Last of the Good Guys

Part I: Al’s Nemesis
1 The Lady in the Lake
2 Chicago Has Fallen
3 Jackass Hill
4 Snorky’s Last Ride

Part II: The Mad Butcher Strikes Again
5 Capone Nemesis Gets Big Job
6 Woman Slain, Head Sought in Coal Bins
7 “Let’s Go”
8 The Tattooed Man
9 Lake Torso
10 Voodoo Doctors and Chicken Freaks
11 Steel and Bone
12 Do You Know This Room?

Part III: Who Is This Mad Torso Killer?
13 Gaylord Sundheim
14 Misguided Zeal
15 The Hot Seat
16 There Goes Eliot Ness
17 The American Sweeney
Epilogue: Eliot-Am-Big-U-ous Ness

Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/04/2022

Edgar winner Stashower (The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War) provides the definitive look at the case of Cleveland’s Torso Killer, who claimed at least 12 victims in the 1930s. The killings happened on the watch of Eliot Ness (1903–1957), who became the city’s director of public safety in 1935 after his much vaunted, and exaggerated, role in bringing Chicago gangster Al Capone to justice. The killer’s victims seemed to have been randomly selected, and their dismembered remains were left in a poor neighborhood with a large vagrant population. Ness’s failure to catch the killer was devastating to his career and reputation. Stashower presents a warts-and-all portrait of Ness, who achieved some success in combating corruption in Cleveland but was unfaithful to his wife and less than fully engaged in the hunt for the Torso Killer. Despite that, Stashower manages to engender empathy for Ness, who was out of his depth dealing with a kind of murderer law enforcement in general was ill-equipped to handle, and who died at 54 after being reduced to working in a bookstore to earn some money. The combination of a baffling unsolved crime with a nuanced portrayal of an American icon adds up to another winner for this talented author. Agent: Susanna Einstein, Einstein Literary Management. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

An iconic police investigator on the hunt for a grisly murderer. Put that on a double bill. I’ll go make the popcorn.” –Patton Oswalt, The New York Times

“Mr. Stashower spins a seamless narrative of the grisly crime wave filled with vivid detail.” –The Wall Street Journal

“Stashower provides shrewd analysis and paints each scene with vivid, macabre details. You’ll sweat reading it.” –The Washington Post

“Hang on for the ride…[American Demon] places you right on the scene, describing the ghastly horrors of [America's] Jack the Ripper while also recounting how crime fighter Eliot Ness started piecing the investigation together, one puzzle piece at a time.” —Forbes

"American Demon, beyond its contributions to the genre of American crime non-fiction, humanizes Ness and provides an honest portrayal of a complex man and the true stories that have cemented his place in history." —Fulbright Chronicles

“Annals of true crime rarely are as good as American Demon…No spoilers here, but only our strong recommendation: American Demon is worth seeking out and reading to reach your own conclusions.” —AirMail

“The combination of a baffling unsolved crime with a nuanced portrayal of an American icon adds up to another winner for this talented author.” –Publishers Weekly (starred)

“[Stashower] deftly sets Ness’ battles against institutional antagonists against an engagingly told, suspenseful account of the search for a notorious killer…riveting and illuminating.” –Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“This account is a gripping true-crime thriller that paints a picture of Ness that’s significantly different from the version we’ve seen in The Untouchables…True-crime fans will want this one on their TBR lists.” —Booklist

“[Stashower’s] personal connection to the city breathes life into the well-researched and chilling account.” –Library Journal

“Stashower's portrait of Ness is layered and he vividly re-creates a broken system.” –Minneapolis Star Tribune

“For historical crime, Stashower is unparalleled.”—Akron Beacon Journal

“A jaunty, fast-moving true-crime adventure.” –The Columbus Dispatch

“Nicely crafted, the book will appeal to hard-core Ness fans and true-crime freaks.” –New York Journal of Books

“Edgar Award-winner Stashower (The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War) approaches this material with a pit bull's tenacity, and he writes with the steeliness of an old-school journalist, suiting the book's place and time… a thrillingly bedeviling true crime story interlaced with a nuanced character study—not of the criminal but of his flawed pursuer.” –Shelf Awareness

“Daniel Stashower has a gift for peering into the dark, shadowy corners of American history and unearthing its most chilling and fascinating tales. American Demon is a twisting, true-life murder mystery about a serial killer who terrified a nation in the throes of the Great Depression—and his nemesis, famed lawman Eliot Ness, who was battling demons of his own. Stashower deftly fuses meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling to give this narrative history all the thrills of the best crime fiction.” —Abbott Kahler, New York Times bestselling author (as Karen Abbott) of The Ghosts of Eden Park

"The legendary Eliot Ness on the trail of a diabolical serial killer—a Hannibal Lecter running loose at the height of the Great Depression. And it’s all true. When it comes to historical crime nonfiction, Stashower is untouchable.” —Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author of Win

“Dan Stashower brings both the novelist's pen and the historian's eye to throw new light on one of history's most baffling cold cases.” –Donna Andrews, New York Times bestselling author of Murder Most Fowl

“Iconic lawman Eliot Ness is well known for his first act: helping to bust Al Capone, together with his intrepid band of Untouchables. With American Demon, Daniel Stashower takes a deep and fascinating dive into Ness’s even more intriguing second act: as Depression era safety commissioner of Cleveland, where he battled rampant corruption and led the hunt for a bizarre and baffling serial killer. Bringing the character and times to vivid life, Stashower once again makes an important contribution to the annals of American crime.” —Mark Olshaker, coauthor of Mindhunter, The Cases That Haunt Us, and The Killer Across the Table

“American Demon is a swirl of today's obsessions in a story of our yesterdays. The book has it all: Serial killers. American hero cops. Media frenzies. Politics. Romance. And it's all character-driven by the real life legendary figure of Eliot Ness from TV and book fame on the track of a monster. American Demon goes beyond a fascinating true crime story to a suspenseful revelation of our American realities.” —James Grady, creator of Condor and author of This Train

From the Publisher

07/01/2022

Stashower (Teller of Tales) traces Eliot Ness's career with a focus on the media-named Torso Murders, which shook the city of Cleveland. Over a course of three years, citizens discovered bundles of dismembered body parts. Twelve killings in all were ascribed to the unknown assailant, dubbed the Mad Butcher, and only two victims were positively identified. Ness was famous for his work in Al Capone's downfall. After some less prestigious work shutting down moonshine stills in the mountains, Ness landed a job that played to his strengths: Cleveland's safety director. Here he could modernize the police force, use his gang busting skills against the city's organized crime, and ferret out corruption within the ranks. Cleveland needed this, but what the city wanted was a hero who could stop the Mad Butcher. Stashower's Ness is a flawed do-gooder, frustrated by city politics, sullied by personal indiscretions, and taunted by postcards from the man he suspected was the Mad Butcher but couldn't prove. VERDICT Stashower was born in Cleveland, and his personal connection to the city breathes life into this well-researched and chilling account.—Terry Bosky

Library Journal

★ 2022-07-02
How a serial killer flummoxed one of America’s most celebrated law enforcement officers.

In his latest true-crime thriller, bestselling popular historian Stashower turns his attention to the so-called “Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run,” aka the “Cleveland Torso Murderer,” a still-unidentified maniac seemingly responsible for a dozen or more murders in Depression-era Cleveland. The author’s focus falls on the investigative role played by Eliot Ness, who was named the city’s safety director after his success in Chicago as the charismatic leader of a mob-busting brigade. Stashower begins with a summary of Ness’ exploits in helping to apprehend Al Capone, then moves on to examine his extraordinary influence in Cleveland as a police reformer and his response, over several years, to the sensation created by a series of grisly murders targeting the homeless. With characteristic skill, the author documents Ness’ involvement in the case and, more broadly, his work combatting systemic corruption as he manipulated newspaper coverage and marshalled political support. Though he did not crack the case of the titular “American demon,” Ness was, as Stashower makes clear, undeniably heroic in confronting injustice. “Ness made a particular specialty of taking down crooked precinct captains,” writes the author, “an effort he likened to cutting off the head of a snake. The campaign climaxed with the shocking downfall of…a captain said to be so powerful that ‘nobody went to the bathroom’ without his permission.” The author deftly sets Ness’ battles against institutional antagonists against an engagingly told, suspenseful account of the search for a notorious killer. Stashower is particularly incisive in his explorations of Ness’ lapses as an investigator and his portrait of the crime fighter’s personal and professional decline. Rather than a simple idealization of Ness’ often uncanny efficiency, we get a nuanced text about a deeply principled and exceptionally accomplished—though all-too-human—reformer.

A riveting and illuminating account of an iconic figure’s involvement in a notorious murder investigation.

Kirkus Reviews