Everybody Pays

On the night of September 27, 1972, twenty-five year old Bob Lowe was just out walking his dog when he witnessed the brutal murder of his neighbor, Billy Logan. Lowe, an auto mechanic and family man living in a blue-collar neighborhood on Chicago's West Side, came literally face to face with the killer, Harry Aleman, before he jumped into an idling car and sped away. It was a vicious mob hit, plain and simple. Lowe easily identified Aleman, and with the assurance of witness protection, was willing to do his civic duty and testify. As he stubbornly told the police and his frightened family, "I saw what I saw." So began Bob Lowe's twenty-five year odyssey through two murder trials, political corruption and pay-offs, disillusionment with the system, depression, petty crime, alcoholism, and finally vindication, redemption and justice..... Fasten your seatbelts, Maurice Possley and Rick Kogan are about to take you on a very bumpy, suspenseful, and compelling ride through the mean streets of Chicago during the years organized crime had a stranglehold on police, judges, and politicians at the highest levels. This is a fascinating, intricate, and intriguing page-turner, made even more so because it's all true. The writing is crisp, intelligent, and engaging, the scenes vivid and riveting, and the characterizations, brilliant. But it's Possley's and Kogan's indepth, painstaking research and great attention to detail that makes this novel stand out. Everybody Pays: Two Men, One Murder And The Price Of Truth is a spectacular and absorbing story, rich in drama and history, and told with insight, wisdom, and humor. This is a novel that shouldn't be missed and should definitely find a place at the top of every mystery/thriller and true crime fan's MUST READ list.

Harry "the Hook" Aleman was tried twice for the same murder. His resulting conviction the second time around was a triumph of justice in a town where, in the past, the insider fix, the wink, the nod, and the hand shake have settled notorious criminal trials. In Cook County, Illinois justice is like Foxfire, and the hero of this story, eyewitness Lowe, paid a price few people would pay to see a homicide cleared and a powerful hoodlum sent away. "Everybody Pays" is a classic Chicago tale, spun by two magnificent Tribune reporters who understand the soul of this great city as it resonates in every back alley jazz and gin joint from North Clark Street down to the South Side. This is not standard "wise guy" reporting. This is serious stuff that has something powerful to say about the human condition, beyond newspaper clippings about one mobster's ability to strike fear into the hearts of innocents through threats of violence and intimidation. It is not Nick Pileggi, Peter Maas or even Dan Moldea. Nor does it pretend to be. It's Kogan and Possley. Remember the names. Mark them down. They are Chicago to the bone.

Maurice Possley and Rick Kogan tell the amazing story of a man who is willing to testify against a mob hit man. In a saga that covers over 25 years and includes judical corruption, crooked cops and the only trial of a man who had once been acquited of a murder only to be retried, we get an inside peek atChicago's "outfit" in it's heyday. After a fixed trial sets the mobster free, the witness watches his life sprial downward in a haze of despair, booze and drugs. A quarter century later he has a chance of redemption but it will come with a heavy price; he will have to testify again. His choice and the outcome of the book will leave you wondering, what would I have done?

Everybody Pays--Two Men, One Murder and the Price of Truth, is more than a great true story of crime in Chicago. It gets to the heart of courage and evil because the players: criminals, cops, ordinary citizens, lawyers, and their families are real human beings, not stereotypes. What is the price of man's life? Not very much on the gritty streets of some neighborhoods. How can a woman share her life with Harry Aleman, the hitman reputed to have killed twenty men? Amazingly enough, her experience of him is as a great husband and a devoted father to her children. What happens to an ordinary guy and his family when he walks out of his house one evening and sees his neighbor blown apart by a shotgun? He does the "right thing" and becomes the key witness in a murder trial, but incredibly, the murderer goes free and the witness goes to prison. The authors' knowledge of crime in Chicago, and their ability to get interviews with the key people involved in this tale of murder and justice, is what makes this book chilling, extremely poignant, and even humorous at times. This is real life, folks, and that makes it more compelling than any T.V. series or movie you will ever watch about the "wise guys".