Many, if not most, of us read Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy during high school. His novel examines the disillusionment of the American Dream. In it, Dreiser reveals how the pressures of society toward financial success, coupled with the protagonist's urges, drive him to his own destruction. But did you know it's based it is […]

Closed Room mysteries appear regularly in mystery novels, but what about real-life examples? On June 12, 1920, around 9 a.m., a housekeeper unlocked the front door to the West Seventieth Street apartment of self-made millionaire Joseph B. Elwell. There, inside the living room, she found a body sitting in a chair with a gunshot to […]

Italian immigrant Vincenzo Colosimo was gunned down on May 11, 1920. Between his arrival in the US at age seventeen, and his death, Colosimo — aka James "Big Jim" or "Diamond Jim" for his obsession with the gems — carved out a criminal empire in Chicago built on prostitution, gambling, and racketeering. He also led […]