Ratings1
Average rating4
Vera Abramowitsz is determined to leave her gritty childhood behind and live a more exciting life, one that her mother never dreamed of. Bobbing her hair and showing her knees, the lipsticked beauty dazzles, doing the Charleston in nightclubs and earning the nickname "Dollface." As the ultimate flapper, Vera captures the attention of two high rollers, a handsome nightclub owner and a sexy gambler. On their arms, she gains entrée into a world filled with bootleg bourbon, wailing jazz, and money to burn. She thinks her biggest problem is choosing between them until the truth comes out. Her two lovers are really mobsters from rival gangs during Chicago's infamous Beer Wars, a battle Al Capone refused to lose. The heady life she's living is an illusion resting on a bedrock of crime and violence unlike anything the country has ever seen before. When the good times come to an end, Vera becomes entangled in everything from bootlegging to murder. and as men from both gangs fall around her, Vera must put together the pieces of her shattered life as Chicago hurtles toward one of the most infamous days in its history, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.--From back cover.
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* I received a copy through a First Reads giveaway*
After a mundane and low-paying job as a typist, Vera , a nice Jewish girl from humble beginnings models jewelry on the side to make ends meet. They dress her up in the nicest clothes and most expensive jewelry and have her model in the swankiest hotels. Vera dreams of living the high life and longs for the glitz and glamour of it all. She gets more than she bargains for when she meets and falls in love with two rival Chicago gangsters.
The carefree days of the Jazz Age and sinister Prohibition crime wave come to life in this read. At first Vera seems like a one dimensional character, but when she is forced to do for herself, she becomes a force to be reckoned with. This one is more a 3 star read, but I'll give it a 4 for the realistic depiction of how Chicago used to be in the Roaring Twenties.