Terror in the City of Champions: Murder, Baseball, and the Secret Society That Shocked Depression-Era Detroit (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781493015702)

A New York Times Bestseller Foreword Reviews' INDIEFAB Book of the Year Winner in True Crime Detroit, mid-1930s: In a city abuzz over its unrivaled sports success, gun-loving baseball fan Dayton Dean became ensnared in the nefarious and deadly Black Legion. The secretive, Klan-like group was executing a wicked plan of terror, murdering enemies, flogging associates, and contemplating armed rebellion. The Legion boasted tens of thousands of members across the Midwest, among them politicians and prominent citizens--even, possibly, a beloved athlete. Terror in the City of Champions opens with the arrival of Mickey Cochrane, a fiery baseball star who roused the Great Depression's hardest-hit city by leading the Tigers to the 1934 pennant. A year later he guided the team to its first championship. Within seven months the Lions and Red Wings follow in football and hockey--all while Joe Louis chased boxing's heavyweight crown. Amidst such glory, the Legion's dreadful toll grew unchecked: staged "suicides," bodies dumped along roadsides, high-profile assassination plots. Talkative Dayton Dean's involvement would deepen as heroic Mickey's Cochrane's reputation would rise. But the ballplayer had his own demons, including a close friendship with Harry Bennett, Henry Ford's brutal union buster. Award-winning author Tom Stanton weaves a stunning tale of history, crime, and sports. Richly portraying 1930s America, Terror in the City of Champions features a pageant of colorful figures: iconic athletes, sanctimonious criminals, scheming industrial titans, a bigoted radio priest, a love-smitten celebrity couple, J. Edgar Hoover, and two future presidents, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. It is a rollicking true story set at the confluence of hard luck, hope, victory, and violence.

Author: Tom Stanton
ISBN-10: 1493015702
ISBN-13: 9781493015702
Publisher: Lyons Press
Language: English
Published: 06/01/2016
Pages: 352
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 9.10h x 5.90w x 1.60d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 04/01/2016
Publishers Weekly 04/18/2016
Booklist 05/01/2016 pg. 58
Library Journal 06/01/2016 pg. 98