In this Book
- Tommy Gun Winter: Jewish Gangsters, a Preacher's Daughter, and the Trial That Shocked 1930s Boston
- Book
- 2015
- Published by: University Press of New England
summary
This is the true tale of two brothers, sons of a successful Jewish contractor, who along with an MIT graduate and a minister’s daughter once competed for headlines with John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd and Bonnie and Clyde.
The gang was led by the angry, violent, yet often charismatic Murton Millen, a small-time hoodlum and aspiring race-car driver. With his younger brother, Irv, and later joined by neighborhood buddy and MIT graduate Abe Faber, Murt launched a career of increasingly ambitious robberies. But it was only after his sudden marriage to the beautiful eighteen-year-old Norma Brighton that the gang escalated to murder. Their crime wave climaxed at a Needham, Massachusetts, bank on February 2, 1934, when Murt cut down two local police officers—Francis Haddock and Forbes McLeod—with a Thompson submachine gun stolen from state police.
The killings, the dogged investigation by two clever detectives, and the record-setting trial with seventeen psychiatrists were national news. In Depression-era America this Boston saga of sex, ethnicity, and bloodshed made the trio and their “red-headed gun moll” infamous. Gorenstein’s account explores the Millen, Faber, and Brighton families and introduces us to cops, psychiatrists, newspaper men and women, and ordinary citizens caught up in the extraordinary Tommy Gun Winter of 1934.
The gang was led by the angry, violent, yet often charismatic Murton Millen, a small-time hoodlum and aspiring race-car driver. With his younger brother, Irv, and later joined by neighborhood buddy and MIT graduate Abe Faber, Murt launched a career of increasingly ambitious robberies. But it was only after his sudden marriage to the beautiful eighteen-year-old Norma Brighton that the gang escalated to murder. Their crime wave climaxed at a Needham, Massachusetts, bank on February 2, 1934, when Murt cut down two local police officers—Francis Haddock and Forbes McLeod—with a Thompson submachine gun stolen from state police.
The killings, the dogged investigation by two clever detectives, and the record-setting trial with seventeen psychiatrists were national news. In Depression-era America this Boston saga of sex, ethnicity, and bloodshed made the trio and their “red-headed gun moll” infamous. Gorenstein’s account explores the Millen, Faber, and Brighton families and introduces us to cops, psychiatrists, newspaper men and women, and ordinary citizens caught up in the extraordinary Tommy Gun Winter of 1934.
Table of Contents
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- Prologue: I Meet Murt
- pp. vii-x
- Part I
- 1. Murt Meets Norma
- pp. 3-7
- 2. The Box Office Boys
- pp. 8-15
- 3. The Tailor’s Son
- pp. 16-31
- 4. Everything I Cannot Do
- pp. 32-37
- 5. 1175 Boylston Street
- pp. 38-48
- 6. Sex and Death
- pp. 49-57
- 7. I Look Like Who?
- pp. 58-64
- 8. A Thompson
- pp. 65-73
- 9. The Snow Turned Red
- pp. 74-82
- Part II
- 10. Dragnet
- pp. 85-99
- 11. A Fire in the Woods
- pp. 100-114
- 12. Finally
- pp. 115-129
- 13. Ambush
- pp. 130-138
- 14. Certainty
- pp. 139-149
- 15. Tear Up Carefully!
- pp. 150-157
- 16. Guns in Their Pockets
- pp. 158-169
- 17. The Violet Depths of Her Eyes
- pp. 170-184
- 18. The Girl Talleyrand
- pp. 185-202
- Part III
- 19. The Briggs Law
- pp. 205-225
- 20. The Price of Life
- pp. 226-251
- 21. Poor Soil
- pp. 252-266
- 22. Jurors
- pp. 267-281
- 23. Lingerie
- pp. 282-290
- 24. My Brother
- pp. 291-303
- Epilogue I
- pp. 304-311
- Epilogue II
- pp. 312-316
- Acknowledgments
- pp. 317-320
- Bibliography
- pp. 333-336
- Illustrations
- pp. 345-358
Additional Information
ISBN
9781611687347
Related ISBN(s)
9781611684261
MARC Record
OCLC
904212185
Pages
344
Launched on MUSE
2015-02-28
Language
English
Open Access
No