Download or read book Rocco Perri written by Antonio Nicaso and published by Mississauga, Ont. : J. Wiley & Sons Canada. This book was released on 2004 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rocco Perri came to Canada almost a century ago from Calabria, Italy. Even today his name is well known to historians, police and organized crime—and especially to the people of the city he called home—Hamilton, Ontario. A poor immigrant, Perri along with his common-law wife, Bessie Starkman, built an unequalled crime empire for the time. During the Prohibition years, Perri provided alcohol to a thirsty clientele in Canada and the United States—a business that was very illegal and highly lucrative. Al Capone and Joseph Kennedy were among Perri’s customers. The Perris also ran gambling, loan-sharking, extortion and prostitution rackets. ROCCO PERRI: King of the Bootleggers is more than the biography of a man and his empire; it is a riveting portrait of a time when corruption was rampant, murder a business necessity, and discrimination against newcomers forced many to turn to crime as a means of survival. This book also solves a half-century-long mystery about the fate of Rocco Perri.
Download or read book The Hamiltonians written by Margaret Houghton and published by James Lorimer & Company. This book was released on 2003-10-22 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hamiltonians is a collection of stories about the most interesting and influential people who made Hamilton their home. These tales are told by some of the city's most expert writers.
Download or read book Iced written by Stephen Schneider and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-12-09 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "You're lucky he didn't have an ice pick in his hands. I know how this guy performs." -Mobster Paul Volpe speaking about a Buffalo-mafia enforcer named "Cicci" Canada is lauded the world over as a law abiding, peaceful country - a shining example to all nations. Such a view, also shared by most Canadians, is typically naïve and misinformed. Throughout its history, to present day and beyond, Canada has been and will continue to be home to criminals and crime organizations that are brilliant at finding ways to make money - a lot of money - illegally. Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada is a remarkable parallel history to the one generally accepted and taught in our schools. Organized crime has had a significant impact on the shaping of this country and the lives of its people. The most violent and thuggish - outlaw motorcycle gangs like Hells Angels - have been raised to mythic proportions. The families who owned distilleries during Prohibition, such as the Bronfmans, built vast fortunes that today are vested in corporate holdings. The mafia in Montreal created and controlled the largest heroin and cocaine smuggling empire in the world, feeding the insatiable appetite of our American neighbours. Today, gangs are laying waste the streets of Vancouver, and "BC bud" flows into the U.S. as the marijuana of choice. Organized crime is as old as this nation's founding, with pirates ravaging the east coast, even as hired guns by colonial governments. Since our nation's earliest times, government and crime groups have found that collusion can have its mutual benefits. Comprehensive, informative and entertaining - as you will discover in the remarkable period pieces devised by the author and the illustrations commissioned specially for this book - Iced is a romp across the nation and across the centuries. In these pages you will meet crime groups that are at once sordid and inept, yet resourceful entrepreneurs and self-proclaimed champions of the underdog, who operate in full sight of their communities and the law. This is the definitive book on organized crime in Canada, and a unique contribution to our understanding of Canadian history.
Download or read book The Whisky King written by Trevor Cole and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “True-crime writing at its finest.” —Dean Jobb, author of Empire of Deception A rich and fascinating history of Canada’s first celebrity mobster, Rocco Perri—King of the Bootleggers—and the man who pursued him, Canada’s first undercover Mountie, for readers of Erik Larson, Dean Jobb and Charlotte Gray At the dawn of the 20th century, two Italian men arrived in Canada amid waves of immigration. One, Rocco Perri, from southern Italy, rose from the life of a petty criminal on the streets of Toronto to running the most prominent bootlegging operation of the Prohibition era, taking over Hamilton and leading one of the country’s most influential crime syndicates. Perri was feared by his enemies and loved by the press, who featured him regularly in splashy front-page headlines. So great was his celebrity that, following the murder of his wife and business partner, Bessie Starkman, a crowd of 30,000 thronged the streets of Hamilton for her funeral. Perri’s businesses—which included alcohol, drugs, gambling and prostitution—kept him under constant police surveillance. He caught the interest of one man in particular, the other arrival from Italy, Frank Zaneth. Zaneth, originally from the Italian north, joined the RCMP and became its first undercover investigator—Operative No. 1. Zaneth’s work took him across the country, but he was dogged in his pursuit of Rocco Perri and worked for his arrest until the day Perri was last seen, in 1944, when he disappeared without a trace. With original research and masterful storytelling, Cole details the fascinating rise to power of a notorious Prohibition-era Canadian crime figure twinned with the life of the man who pursued him.
Download or read book The Complete Idiot s Guide to the Mafia written by Jerry Capeci and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-01-04 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a comprehensive overview of the world's most notorious criminal organization, tracing the history of the Mafia, changes in the ranks and power following the conviction of key members, and their diverse roles in cities across the United States.
Download or read book Hamilton Street Names written by Margaret Houghton and published by James Lorimer & Company. This book was released on 2002-10-22 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beach Boulevard, Mud Street, Sulphur Springs Road, Paradise Road, the Jolley Cut -- street names are a vivid and living embodiment of a city's history, of the dreams, passions and workaday concerns of its citizens. Love, murder, betrayal, political intrigue -- all are present in this engaging new book about Hamilton's past. Most Hamiltonians know that MacNab Street was named after Allan Napier MacNab, a famous native son, but who were the people who gave their names to James, King or Barton streets, Fennell Avenue, or Kitty Murray Lane? Street names offer a unique, meandering path through Hamilton's fascinating past, full of curious biographical culs-de-sac and occasional sweeping historical vistas. Hamilton Street Names includes more than 120 routes in the new city. Each alphabetically organized entry offers fascinating insights into the city's social, political, cultural or military history. Richly illustrated with archival photographs, this book offers fascinating views into the past of the new Hamilton.
Download or read book Hamilton A People s History written by Bill Freeman and published by James Lorimer & Company. This book was released on 2006-10-14 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pioneers, soldiers, merchants, murderers, workers and bosses--all contributed to the colourful history of the tough, attractive city of Hamilton. Popular historian Bill Freeman tells the story of the city from the time of its earliest habitation through the War of 1812, on to its heyday as a major manufacturing centre. The key roles that the railway and Hamilton's spectacular geography played in the city's development are fully described, and the many forceful personalities who shaped Hamilton's history are brought to life. Bill Freeman's lively account superbly balances social, political, and labour themes to give the reader a deep understanding of the city's past. The product of extensive research, illustrated with over 200 contemporary and archival images, Hamilton: A People's History offers a vivid portrait of one of Ontario's most prosperous and appealing cities.
Download or read book Enemies Within written by Franca Iacovetta and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Enemies Within is the first study of its kind to examine not only the formulation and uneven implementation of internment policy, but the social and gender history of internment. It brings together national and international perspectives.
Download or read book Mirrors of Stone written by Charlie Angus and published by Between The Lines. This book was released on 2001 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mirrors of Stone delves into the many ethnic cultures that thrived in the mining areas of Northern Ontario from the 1920s to the 1960s. The stormy history of hardrock mining camps has never fit into the comfortable cliches by which Canada tells its story. Angus unearths the dark sides of this history-the wild tales of bootleggers, mobsters, and prostitution rings' and in so doing opens up new ways of seeing Ontario's history and culture. This is Angus' third work on the economic and cultural history of Northern Ontario, and the second collaboration between Angus and Louie Palu. We Lived a Life and Then Some (BTL, 1996) tells the marvelous story of Cobalt, Ontario, and Industrial Cathedrals of the North (BTL, 1999) portrays in images and words the ghostly mining structures now largely abandoned in the north.
Download or read book Bessie Perri written by Rose Keefe and published by BookCaps Study Guides. This book was released on 2020-09-12 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ★★★ Behind every smart man is a smarter woman ★★★ Rocco Perri was the Al Capone of Canada. Without him, the American market of alcohol would be a little...dry. Rocco is frequently cited as the most successful bootlegger of Canada, however, for one important reason: his wife, Bessie Perri. If Rocco was the King of Bootlegging, Bessie was the obvious queen. With page-turning suspense, this gritty book looks at the brains behind Canadian bootlegging and how her cutthroat ways forever changed the landscape of both prohibitions.
Download or read book Whisky and Ice written by C.W. Hunt and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 1996-07-26 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Roaring Twenties, Ben Kerr was known as the "King of the Rumrunners." The U.S. Coast Guard put him at the top of the most-wanted list and offered a reward of $5,000. But ending up in Club Fed was not Kerr’s only worry - he had to contend with Hamilton crime lords Rocco and Bessie Perri. Whisky and Ice takes the reader back to the Prohibition era, when Canada and the United States were obsessed with "demon liquor" (not to mention the endless posturing by politicians). As Hunt aptly writes, the U.S. during Porhibition "was about as dry as the mud flats of the Mississippi at high tide."
Download or read book King of the Mob written by James Dubro and published by Markham, Ont. : Viking. This book was released on 1987 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Their Town written by Bill Freeman and published by James Lorimer & Company. This book was released on 2016-03-15 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a classic of its kind -- a no-holds-barred portrait of Hamilton civic life in the 1970s. The focus is on power -- and the powerful. On the surface, power was wielded by the city's businessman-mayor, a business-oriented city council, and a Liberal Party machine fronted by prominent cabinet minister John Munro. Behind the scenes Bill Freeman and Marsha Hewitt found a fascinating set of characters and organizations. They offer a history of organized crime in Hamilton from its rum-running heyday of Rocco Perri to Johnny Papalia and his associates in the 1970s. Freeman and Hewitt provide a critical analysis of The Hamilton Spectator's often unquestioning support of the business agenda for the city, which produced the ruinous demolition of the downtown core and its replacement with Jackson Square. They also examine the labour movement's role in civic life. A chapter on the John Munro political machine, written by Henry Jacek, shows how politics is integrated into the power structure of the city. The book tells the story of key development projects of the 1960s and 1970s that were supposed to transform the central city. The account of the notorious contracts for dredging Hamilton Harbour is compelling reading. The authors look closely at the winners and losers in these projects. Today, Hamiltonians can make their own judgments about the long-term impact of these projects on their city.
Download or read book Mysteries of Ontario written by John Robert Colombo and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 1999-05 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together some 500 accounts of strange events and eerie experiences in the province.
Download or read book Running With Dillinger written by Edward Butts and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2008-02-12 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book picks up where The Desperate Ones: Canada's Forgotten Outlaws left off. Here are more remarkable true stories about Canadian crimes and criminals -- most of them tales that have been buried for years. The stories begin in colonial Newfoundland, with robbery and murder committed by the notorious Power Gang. As readers travel across the country and through time, they will meet the last two men to be hanged in Prince Edward Island, smugglers who made lake Champlain a battleground, a counterfeiter whose bills were so good they fooled even bank managers, and teenage girls who committed murder in their escape from jail. They will meet the bandits who plundered banks and trains in Eastern Canada and the West, and even the United States. Among them were Same Behan, a robber whose harrowing testimony about the brutal conditions in the Kingston Penittentiary may have brought about his untimely death in "The Hole"; and John "Red" Hamilton, the Canadian-born member of the legendary Dillinger gang.
Download or read book Rachael s Legacy written by Pat Mattaini Mestern and published by Dudley Court Press, LLC. This book was released on 2012-10-22 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Pat Mestern's fictional works are among the most rewarding and most pleasing published today. Her historical novels conjure up a time long gone and characters long dead. They never fail to embrace the sorts of scandals, dreams and secrets that can haunt nearly every family in every walk of life for many tomorrows." --J. Marshall Craig, screen writer and film director Based on a true story. From the sophistication and glamour of upper-class New York City life during the roaring twenties, Erie Carliss travels to the rural Mennonite country in Wellington County, Ontario to discover her secret past. In the search for answers, Erie finds herself in the middle of a power struggle among whiskey runners and gangsters. The new friendships and rekindled interests of old acquaintances blossom. This is an exciting and moving story of a young woman coming to terms with her heritage and making a choice between the life she was raised in and a life she was born into. Pat Mestern has once again delivered a masterpiece of genuine, relatable characters whose journeys unveil more than they could have ever imagined. In this sequel to Anna: Child of the Poor House, Rachael's Legacy takes the reader through the intertwined lives of Erie and Anna Carliss and the Mennonite community. Author of seven fiction books prior, Pat's storytelling ability shines through and wraps you up in an exhilarating experience of mystery, family, history, and love.
Download or read book Gangland International written by James Morton and published by Sphere. This book was released on 1999 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with the changing definition of organised crime, this history traces the complex links, trading and even homage which extends between the criminals of one country and another. Morton also looks at local gangs and their international links.
