The definitive, jaw-dropping account of the Jazz Age con woman, escort, speakeasy owner, and racketeer Vivian Gordon, whose sensational murder - and the damning list of powerful politicos, gangsters, and businessmen left behind in her diary - captivated Prohibition-era New York, obsessed its then-governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ensnared its mayor, and exposed the city\'s dark underbelly of police corruption.
Ultimately, Broadway Butterfly finally finds a place in history for Vivian, a woman with a rare legacy in Gangster lore, whose demise was as tragically inevitable as the brutality of the city\'s demimonde during Prohibition..
The probe eventually resulted in the career-ending investigation of James Jimmy Walker, disgraced mayor of New York City.
The evidence Vivian left behind was damning: a diary with more than 300 names implicating powerful officials, philanthropists, businessmen, and every major gangland figure in collusion and corruption.
Destefano unravels her tumultuous life and the headline-making murder that became an obsession for many, including then-Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Now, in the first in-depth biography of its kind, Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning journalist Anthony M.
On February 26, 1931, Vivian\'s bludgeoned and garroted body was found dumped in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx.
But given her dangerously intimate associations--from ruthless underworld gangsters to corrupt high-ranking city officials--Vivian was also a woman who knew too much and who rightfully feared for her life.
She was a speakeasy owner, blackmailer, high-end escort, extortionist, racketeer, and con woman.
Before long, the flame-haired chorus girl parlayed her youth, beauty, and ambition into more profitable means as a tough and glamorous symbol of Prohibition-era excess.
Like so many other pretty butterflies, Indiana-born Vivian Gordon fluttered to New York in 1920 looking for fame and fortune.
Destefano.
From Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning mob historian Anthony M.
The definitive, jaw-dropping account of the Jazz Age con woman, escort, speakeasy owner, and racketeer Vivian Gordon, whose sensational murder - and the damning list of powerful politicos, gangsters, and businessmen left behind in her diary - captivated Prohibition-era New York, obsessed its then-governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ensnared its mayor, and exposed the city\'s dark underbelly of police corruption
