I don't like reading about criminal cases, though I love a good gangster movie. Goodfellas I can see over and over! I've seen two film biographies about the real-life twin London gangsters the Krays. (One of them was literally insane, and ended up in Broadmoor.) I've also watched the handsome but uneven TV series Boardwalk Empire, about Atlantic City bootlegging in the 1920s. The best thing about that show was the actors playing real-life gangsters Al Capone and Arnold Rothstein.
I've learned a bit about Capone from a couple of book about America in the '20s. There's no real evidence that he was behind the St. Valentine's Day massacre. The only thing that really distinguished him from other leading bootleggers was his love of publicity. Other gangsters were prudent enough to keep a low profile, and Capone's higher profile is probably one of the reasons he only spent a couple of years at the top of the racket. (He was still in his twenties!)
There really was an Elliot Ness, but his book The Untouchables was a pack of lies. In the end, they could only convict Capone of tax evasion. The ultimate lesson is that Prohibition was a foolish mistake which led to increased crime. Its the same with the War on Drugs!
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