While he certainly will not benefit from the publicity, Al Capone was back in the news recently when he received mention in a Donald Trump tweet. An attempt was made to compare Capone to a former Trump campaign manager who is presently on trial for major charges of tax evasion. Capone’s name often comes up as an example of convicting someone for tax crimes when the government is unable to convict them of anything substantive. Some people apparently believe that hiding millions of dollars in income from the federal government and lying about it repeatedly is not worthy of attention from the legal system.

SCARFACE AND THE UNTOUCHABLE by Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz is an exhaustive and thorough recounting of the lives of Eliot Ness and Al Capone, whose careers intersected on the streets of Chicago in the Prohibition era of the 1920s and ’30s. It makes clear that the effort of law enforcement to bring Capone to justice was more than simply proving that he failed to pay income taxes. It was a vigorous effort to bring an evil criminal to justice. And, in the end, it succeeded in that goal.

The saga of the two men has been well-documented in books, movies and television. Collins and Schwartz’s account is massive, totaling more than 700 pages, including lengthy source notes. They open their book by informing readers that much of what they might have read previously about the Capone-Ness confrontation is wrong. “Neither of our subjects has really gotten a fair shake from history,” they tell us, and their goal is to balance the scales of history in this book. While that objective may be accomplished in the 556 pages of history, it easily could have been done without disparaging those who have written on the subject.

"...an exhaustive and thorough recounting of the lives of Eliot Ness and Al Capone... The two men will be forever linked because every good crime story needs a good guy and a villain. SCARFACE AND THE UNTOUCHABLE is a good crime story, and it is even true."

The authors make an interesting point early on when they focus on the similarities between Ness and Capone. Both were first-generation Americans, the sons of immigrant fathers who were bakers in their respective countries of birth. Capone’s father became a barber, while Ness’ remained a baker, and both became successful businessmen in America. Capone and Ness also shared an interest in modernizing the professions they chose. Capone adopted the methods of the corporate world to organized crime, while Ness sought to bring police officers into the modern world of technology and scientific techniques. Both men were hard-working and successful at young ages. Capone became the top man of a multi-million-dollar crime organization at the age of 26. At 27, Ness took charge of a taskforce that was formed to bring Capone to justice.

In chronological fashion, Collins and Schwartz provide details about Ness and Capone as they advance towards the inevitable confrontation in a federal courtroom in Chicago. In 1931, the U.S. Attorney obtained a secret indictment against Capone. His attorneys found out and sought to negotiate a disposition on tax charges. They wrote a letter to officials offering to pay taxes owed in exchange for serving a short prison sentence. More indictments followed on tax charges and a multi-thousand-count indictment alleging conspiracy to violate the Volstead Act. More negotiation ensued, and a plea agreement was reached.

Federal Judge James Wilkerson took control of the case, first agreeing to the plea and then vacating the agreement and forcing Capone to stand trial. Once the trial began, Judge Wilkerson virtually guaranteed Capone’s conviction by allowing into evidence the letter written by Capone’s attorneys offering to plead guilty. I doubt that any court would make that ruling today. Capone was convicted and sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was paroled in 1939 and died in 1947.

There is far more material here on Capone than on Ness. One should not be surprised because it truly is Capone’s story. Capone went out of his way to portray himself as a Robin Hood-type gangster. Ness worked behind the scenes and under the radar to gather information to convict him. Not until Capone was indicted did people even learn of the identity of the investigators who eventually would be known as the Untouchables (a newspaper reporter gave that name to the Ness team). The two men will be forever linked because every good crime story needs a good guy and a villain. SCARFACE AND THE UNTOUCHABLE is a good crime story, and it is even true.