'The Ghosts Of Eden Park' Seems Fittingly Haunted By Prohibition
Karen Abbott's page-turner teases with its central mystery, reaching its climactic final trial with a satisfying bang — though more on the politics of the time would have been a welcome layer.
Karen Abbott's new historical true-crime book, The Ghosts of Eden Park, doesn't claim to center on Prohibition. In fact, it tries to keep to the main characters of its subtitle: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz-Age America.
But without that law, the crimes explored in the text wouldn't have occurred — making it feel fittingly haunted, much like a novel whose scenery is a central character (say, London in Charles Dickens' Bleak House).
The bootleg king of the title is
