by Richard Zacks. Set in gas-lit 1890s Manhattan, Zacks' depiction of virtue versus vice pits Theodore Roosevelt against a gallery of antagonists. Some are thugs on the street, harlots in the doorway, and dram sellers on the stoop. Others are crooked police and TR's fellow commissioners on the police board, of which he was a member from 1895 to 1897. The period is integral to Roosevelt's legend as a pugnacious scourge of corruption, though Zacks' episode-by-episode narrative of his hyperactive tenure indicates that Satan's Circus (2007), as Mike Dash aptly titled his book about this era of New York City history, was only mildly interrupted by Roosevelt's exertions. Nevertheless, his fight is a fascinating story that Zacks relays with zest. His pungent vignettes of sinful establishments and the police who protected them hang on the main plot of TR's campaigns to dismiss bad cops and enforce long-dormant alcohol and prostitution laws, which often resulted in proceedings showcasing TR at his most combatively indignant. His research artfully attired in active prose, Zacks writes a winner for TR and NYC buffs. --Booklist (Check Catalog)
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Island of vice : Theodore Roosevelt's doomed quest to clean up sin-loving New York
by Richard Zacks. Set in gas-lit 1890s Manhattan, Zacks' depiction of virtue versus vice pits Theodore Roosevelt against a gallery of antagonists. Some are thugs on the street, harlots in the doorway, and dram sellers on the stoop. Others are crooked police and TR's fellow commissioners on the police board, of which he was a member from 1895 to 1897. The period is integral to Roosevelt's legend as a pugnacious scourge of corruption, though Zacks' episode-by-episode narrative of his hyperactive tenure indicates that Satan's Circus (2007), as Mike Dash aptly titled his book about this era of New York City history, was only mildly interrupted by Roosevelt's exertions. Nevertheless, his fight is a fascinating story that Zacks relays with zest. His pungent vignettes of sinful establishments and the police who protected them hang on the main plot of TR's campaigns to dismiss bad cops and enforce long-dormant alcohol and prostitution laws, which often resulted in proceedings showcasing TR at his most combatively indignant. His research artfully attired in active prose, Zacks writes a winner for TR and NYC buffs. --Booklist (Check Catalog)
