In a riveting novel of betrayal and love based on a real-life, high-profile murder trial, Imogene, a beautiful society lady once known as the Jazz Bird, is killed by her husband, George Remus, a famous and fabulously wealthy bootlegger, who then turns himself in. By the author of Four Corners of Night. 75,000 first printing. $75,000 ad/promo. After three taut, well-crafted contemporary mysteries, Craig Holden turns here to the 1920s, evoking a period rich in glamour and drama in a powerful and elegiac story told with consummate skill. Young Charlie Taft, a prosecutor who's the son of a former president and chief justice, doesn't need to solve the murder of Imogene Remus, the quixotic and exotic wife of Cincinnati bootlegger George Remus. George has already confessed to the crime, and his conviction is all but assured. But as Charlie delves deeper into the tangled history of the stunning socialite who defied her wealthy family to marry Remus and went to extraordinary lengths to free him from prison, he begins to doubt whether the bootlegger is insane, as he claims, or the real victim of his wife's betrayal. Holden brings a fascinating era in American history to life through the creation of complex, multidimensional characters who haunt the reader long after the last page is turned. This is a tour de force from a writer who gets better with every novel. --Jane Adams A belle of the 1920s, Imogene "Jazz Bird" Ring Remus had it all: she was the well-educated daughter of a prominent Cincinnati lawyer, an acknowledged beauty, and the wife of renowned bootlegger George Remus. Her life was a blur of lavish parties and legal mazes as she alternately lives it up and lives in hiding as her husband dodged the Feds. Then, on the afternoon of October 6, 1927, George shot Imogene, left her dying in the street, and calmly drove to the police station to confess. Holden (The River Sorrow) has marvelously blended history, romance, and legal thriller in this re-creation of the sensational trial that followed. (The story is based on real events.) Did the bootlegger do it to avoid a messy and costly divorce? The chief prosecutor was Charlie Taft, youngest son of the former President; the witness list was a roll call of local high society; and the proceedings revealed an amazing web of disappearing fortunes, steamy love triangles, and governmental manipulation, set against a backdrop of murder, illicit booze, and hot jazz. Reminiscent of E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime, this is an exceptional period piece that portrays the roller-coaster life of the Prohibition era with color, verve, and consistency. Holden's best work, it is highly recommended for all fiction collections. Susan Clifford Braun, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. Basing his story on the 1920s murder trial of Cincinnati bootlegger George Rebus, Holden has fashioned an evocative Jazz Age thriller. There was never any doubt that Rebus killed his wife, Imogene, a blue-blood flapper known in the press as the Jazz Bird, but the trial sought to resolve several other mysteries: What happened to Rebus' $80 million fortune while the bootlegger was imprisoned on a racketeering charge? Was Imogene having an affair with the FBI agent who investigated her husband? Holden tells the story mostly in flashback as the trial progresses, with point of view juggling between the husband, his wife, and the prosecutor, Charlie Taft, youngest son of the former president. The courtroom scenes drag a bit, but Holden captures the frenzy of the era with Ragtime -like flourishes, and the multileveled love story is genuinely entrancing, especially Taft's infatuation with the dead woman, which nicely echoes the film Laura . A fine mix of history and romance, stylishly layered with noir sensibility. Bill Ott Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved The Washington Post Craig Holden writes like a dream. -- Review Craig Holden is the author of three previous novels: The River Sorrow, The Last Sanctuary, and Four Corners of Night. He lives in Michigan. To learn more about Craig Holden you can visit his website: www.CraigHolden.com. Chapter One: Black for Mourning Already, the telephone in the study was ringing. They had just come in the front door from a glorious month at the family cottage at Murray Bay, Quebec: the clear frigid water with its walleye and bass and muskie, the autumn trees, the brisk air, the children. Ten years they'd been married, Charlie and Eleanor Taft, but instead of a second honeymoon they'd chosen to take the children along, and it had so been the right thing. Charlie carried a couple of bags, though the staff was unloading most of them. Now he dropped them in the doorway and raced to catch the call. "Charlie," Eleanor said. "You're still on your holiday! How important -- " But he was gone. "Taft," he said. It was one of his assistant prosecutors. As the man spoke, Charlie watched through the front w