King of the Jews: The Greatest Mob Story Never Told, Paperback/Nick Tosches

Flamboyant mobster Arnold Rothstein was gambling and money. He was the inspiration for Meyer Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby and Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls . It was rumored he masterminded the 1919 World Series fix. He was Mr. Broadway, a king of corruption holding court from his private booth at Lindy's Restaurant. In this lively, sprawling biography, the inimitable Nick Tosches -- one of the greatest living American writers ( Dallas Observer ) -- examines the myth and extraordinary legacy of Arnold Rothstein. It is an elegy to old New York that places an iconic, larger-than-life criminal kingpin firmly at the center of nothing less than the history of the entire Western world.