Spartacus Review

Volume 29: 21st January, 2009

Crime

Title: The Tangled Web

Author: Michael J. Cain

Editor:

Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing

Price: £16.00

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: Richard Cain

Category:

Here is the dramatic story of Detective Richard Cain's criminal career, as revealed by his half-brother. Cain led a double life—one as a well known cop who led raids that landed on the front pages, and the other as a "made man" in one of Chicago's most notorious mafia crime families. Michael Cain weaves together years of research, interviews, family anecdotes, and rare documents to create a comprehensive biography of this complex, articulate, and self-contradictory criminal genius. In a story that reads like the plot of Martin Scorsese's The Departed, Cain played both ends against the middle to become a household name in Chicagoland and a notorious figure in both the Mob and the world of Chicago law enforcement. Eventually murdered in a café by two masked men wielding shotguns, he lived and died in a world of bloodshed and violence. Cain left behind a story so outlandish that he has even been accused of being involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Filled with fascinating and until-now unknown facts, The Tangled Web tells the full story of this one-man crime wave.

Title: JFK and Sam

Author: Antoinette Giancana, John R. Hughes and Thomas H. Jobe

Editor:

Publisher: Cumberland House

Price: £16.00

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: Richard Cain

Category:

"JFK and Sam" is a tale of two murders. The first occurred in Dallas in 1963 and the second in Illinois in 1975. The first was ordered by Sam Giancana to avenge his betrayal by the Kennedys. Giancana had assured JFK's win in Illinois with the understanding that the new administration would go easy on the Chicago mob. Instead, Bobby Kennedy stepped up prosecutions. The second assassination was carried out by the CIA and the mob to prevent Giancana from testifying before the Church Committee hearings regarding his role in the CIA's plot to kill Fidel Castro. The irony is that both men were assassinated because of their relationship to each other and events that transpired from that relationship. "JFK and Sam" is unique from other books on the Kennedy assassination. Written by an insider with access to key figures, it names the assassins and traces the assassination team's movements in 1963. The first shot came from the Dal-Tex building (adjacent to the book depository) and struck Kennedy in the back of the neck. The second came from Giancana's driver who fired a CIA prototype handgun with a telescope (called a "fireball") from the grassy knoll, using a frangible bullet, which explains why there was such a massive wound to Kennedy's head. Lee Harvey Oswald was the fall guy and did not fire a weapon.