Summary and Reviews of Jazz Bird by Craig Holden

Jazz Bird by Craig Holden

Jazz Bird

by Craig Holden
  • Critics' Consensus (7):
  • First Published:
  • Dec 1, 2001, 320 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jan 2003, 400 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

Based on a true story - at once a love story, a crime novel, and the tale of the courtroom battle between two powerful men whose respective futures hang in the balance.

An exquisitely written novel of love and betrayal, of money and power, set at the apex of that time of glitz and innocence known as the Jazz Age

CINCINNATI, 1927...

Lawyer George Remus became the country's biggest bootlegger, grossing over $80 million until his arrest. Upon his release from prison, he learns that his beautiful wife, Imogene, has left him and that his bank accounts are empty. On the morning of their divorce, he runs her car off the road in the middle of rush hour in Eden Park and shoots her to death.

Shocked and fascinated by this horrible crime, the country gears up for a sensational trial pitting the man known as "the king of the bootleggers" against Chief Prosecutor Charlie Taft, the youngest son of the former president. The trial is a national spectacle, a lens focused on the fabulous rise and fall of the Remus empire and the tragic love story within it, and an attempt to answer some tantalizing questions: What actually happened to the fortune? What are the motives of the federal agent who brought Remus down? What complex emotions and desires, leading ultimately to the ruin of three men, really lie within the heart of the woman known as the Jazz Bird?

Based on a true story, The Jazz Bird is at once a love story, a crime novel, and the tale of the courtroom battle between two powerful men whose respective futures hang in the balance.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

The Washington Post
Craig Holden writes like a dream.

The New York Times Book Review
Holden knows how to create a tight, high-velocity narrative and surprising characters, successfully combining these elements with some wild, over-the-top plot twists and a nightmarish, Hitchcockian sense of terror.

Book Magazine - Chris Barsanti
Considering what a tawdry tale Holden has here, the book is awfully antiseptic. It's easy to read, but it's not the kind of novel you would recommend to anyone else or be likely to remember much of the next day.

Library Journal - Susan Clifford Braun
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.

Booklist - Bill Ott
A fine mix of history and romance, stylishly layered with noir sensibility.

Kirkus Reviews
A consistently interesting fictionalized version of a real-life Jazz Age crime....A little long and a little slow, but with a Gatsby-like quality that lifts it way above the average.

Publishers Weekly
Based on a true story, this deftly written novel by Holden (Four Corners of the Night) delves deep into the murk of the Jazz Age, blending mystery and history in a heady cocktail.

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Read-Alikes

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