“Her body lay in the undergrowth beside a road that snaked through Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. It might have gone unnoticed but for a white kid glove snagged on a bush that caught the morning light, drawing the attention of a pedestrian. Her hair was auburn and fashionably short. She wore a black velvet dress and a single suede shoe. A dirty noose squeezed her throat so tightly that it broke the skin. The murder was sensational, even by the jaded standards of the bloody Prohibition Era. Journalists rushed to the scene and breathlessly expounded on the victim’s beauty and glamorous clothing. But the biggest bombshell landed after the body was identified as Benita Bischoff, alias Vivian Gordon. The lead detective described her as a ‘a woman of many acquaintances,’ while the Bronx DA called her ‘a shakedown artist.’ When detectives searched Gordon’s posh Midtown apartment, they found scandalous black books and an explosive clue—a letter from an anti-corruption investigation that had exposed a heinous police conspiracy. These shocking discoveries riveted the public and set in motion events that ultimately brought down the corrupt political machine that had ruled New York for generations.”-Cover
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