Yeah, I've been fascinated with the Gang War in Chicago during the Twenties for a few years now. I'd be happy to send you a term paper I wrote on the Irish guy sometime.
Oh, if you got it handy, you can drop it in my e-mail/forum/anything anytime <A BORDER="0" HREF="http://www.supercars.net/PitLane?displayFAQ=y"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="pitlane/emoticons/smile.gif"></A> I've just finished some files on the Sicilian mafia (1860-1994, so that includes the late 80's maxi trials as well) and am pretty fascinated by organized crime in general. edit: by finished, I mean finished reading
Also, a lot of what you read on wikipedia concerning the italian mafia is plain wrong. I'm talking about the majority of things, ranging from broad stories to tiny details. If you go to the page of judge Falcone (who led the maxi trials, but got killed by an explosive trap, the pic there gives a good impression) there, you're better off not reading anything written there.
Yeah, I've noticed mistakes on wikipedia regarding Chicago in the Twenties too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dion_O%27Banion His name was Dean O'Banion. He was 100% Irish, FFS. Capone referred to him as "Dion" to the media after his murder and it stuck, though. I've only seen a few books that spelled his name right. I never got that.
The Purple Gang were some bad mother#$%#ers back in the day. "They're rotten, purple like the color of bad meat." And they were almost exclusively Jews, so you know they had some bank. EDIT: and you forgot MS-13, who apparently are the new baddest dudes in town. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms_13