The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz-Age America
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An Amazon Best Book of August 2019: One of the most deliciously disturbing things about BBC America’s hit TV dramedy Killing Eve is that you just can’t help but like psychopathic serial killer, Villanelle. Sure, she’s ruthless, but charismatically so, and she’s a snappy dresser to boot. The same could be said for real-life “King of the Bootleggers,” George Remus. Karen Abbott’s compulsively readable The Ghosts of Eden Park provides a riveting portrait of this eccentric and teetotaling whiskey trafficker who, shamelessly flouting Prohibition laws, once amassed an alcohol arsenal that was 35 percent of the U.S.’s total supply. The unlawful sale of that booze brought Remus enormous wealth, and he, along with his wife, Imogen, enjoyed a lifestyle that would make Jay Gatsby jealous. But a pioneering female prosecutor—only the second woman appointed to Assistant Attorney General—would put a cork in the fun, landing Remus in prison (where he whiled away his sentence in private quarters and secured the services of a maid and cook). During this time his beloved Imogen, in cahoots with a crooked Department of Justice agent, absconded with his spoils, causing the already tightly wound trafficker to snap. The Ghosts of Eden Park is a rollicking read, and a different kind of guilty pleasure: you might find yourself rooting for Remus at times, until you remember his very real brutality and the different set of rules that benefited him (and others) as a person of means, and stature, and a certain celebrity. It’s also what makes this almost century-old true crime tale seem quite current. —Erin Kodicek, Amazon Book Review