Eliot Ness: The Real Story

Paul W. Heimel has done a superb job of uncovering and relating the life and times of Eliot Ness, including the role that he and his team of "Untouchables" played in the destruction of Al Capone. Ness was a far more interesting and complex individual than the Hollywood characterizations of him. He was every bit as honest, diligent, and hard-working as his fictional counterpart, but also flawed in terribly human ways. The reader comes away with a deeper understanding of a very real, ultimately tragic human being. Heimel knows how to tell a story well and captures Ness's fascinating life without bogging the tale down in minutia. He provides clear images of Capone and a host of other characters, including FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. The paranoid, delusional "G Man" was a neurotic tyrant who could not stomach Ness getting any publicity or credit, no matter how deserved, because he believed it upstaged him and his agency. Ness even merited one of Hoover's many secret files. Indeed, Ness seems to have been harmed by his own success in destroying crooked cops, politicians, and labor thugs, which inevitably made him enemies. His own inability to convert his exemplary public service into business or political success reveals him as all-too human. His final years, and the lack of any material reward for his deeds, are both moving and tragic. This is a real slice of Americana without any glamorization. Heimel deserves our gratitude for rescuing a wonderful man from both near-obscurity and horrible distortion.

Eliot Ness was a legendary lawman in the twenties and thirties. But entertaining as they are, the various Untouchables movies and television shows don't paint an accurate picture of him. And The Untouchables (by Ness and Oscar Fraley) and Four Against the Mob (by Fraley) tell part of the story, but leave a lot of detail out, including just about any unflattering pieces. Heimel's book is the first true attempt at an unbiased look at Ness' life. And have no doubt, Eliot Ness did some amazing things in law enforcement. His time as Cleveland's Public Safety Director is more episode-filled than his Chicago days. As of 2003, there is not a better book out there on Eliot Ness.

If you are looking for an accurate and interesting book about Eliot Ness, this book is definitely for you. As I was reading this book, it was obvious that Paul Heimel researched Eliot Ness's life in depth. Fact and fiction were separated to get an honest look at Ness's life. Also, I didn't feel that he used any exaggerations and he fairly portrayed Ness. He gave Ness credit for his accomplishments and didn't "sugar-coat" Ness's failures. Ness's human side was captured in the book. Thumbs-up to the author Paul Heimel.

Eliot Ness is the true story of how a young Prohibition agentsuddenly founds himself thrust into the midst of Chicago's gangland asthe director of a special team with a daring mission: cut off the economic lifeblood of Al Capone's criminal empire by destroying his breweries. When Ness and his investigators turned down bribes, the are aptly labeled the "Untouchables" by a newspaper columnist. After Chicago, Ness continued to bring the same aggressive style of law enforcement to Cleveland, where crooked cops had allowed organized crime to flourish. Ness zeroed in on the gambling dens, prostitution houses, and extortion rings that have taken over the city. Ness cleaned up Cleveland and then turned his attention to federal service and the business world. Eliot Ness is a biography based on more than three years of interviews, investigation, and exhaustive research. After his career was ended, his experiences were published under the title "The Untouchables", and eventually became a very popular television series. But the television series bore scant relation to the true story of Eliot Ness, for example, in his entire campaign against Al Capone, Ness never in a gunfight, never had to raise and fire his gun against another human being. Eliot Ness is a splendid biography and will be of intense interest to anyone interested in the life and times of a remarkable federal law enforcement officer during one of the country's most turbulent and lawless times.

Fascinating book. Heimel unveils an Eliot Ness that no one has ever heard of. The real Eliot Ness was much more captivating, if less cartoonish, than the myth. Quickly paced and well researched, it was a pleasure to read. I learned a tremendous amount about the man and about the creation of myth that pretends to be history