Review - American Demon

 Title: American Demon

Author: Daniel Stashower

Release Date: Sept 6, 2022

Disclaimer: ARC via Macmillan

               If you watch NCIS, you know that it is a spin off of the 90s show Jag.  One of the stars of Jag was David James Elliot who was one of the actors in the short lived Untouchables series that aired on Fox (I believe).  No, he didn’t play Elliott Ness.

               That series didn’t get a mention in this book, which is the only disappointing thing about this excellent book.

               The Robert Stack series, the one that the newer series was in part rebooting, does get a mention as does the famous movie with Kevin Coster.  Stashower, however, does not focus on the constantly retread history of Capone vs Ness as it were, but instead on what Ness did after Chicago when he went to work in Cleveland, land of the burning river and the burning mayoral hair, and was confronted by not only having to clear corruption out of a police force but also a serial killer who liked cutting up bodies after he killed them.  Later people, usually children, would find a seagull chowing down on a body. 

               Ness was Cleveland’s director of public safety at the time and as such, people wanted and expected to handle the case.  But Ness also found himself in a slightly unfamiliar place, having to play politics as well as simple detective work, and it would be fair, that Ness was more interested in, rightly or wrongly, police corruption.

               Stashower not only focuses on Ness’ quest to solve the murders and the at times polarizing actions that he took, but also on the area and people who were the victims of the serial killer as well as the work of the less famous detectives who were tasked with the case, and who in some ways may have been hampered by Ness, who found himself in a situation where his ethics and what needs to be done may be at odds in ways that he is not prepared to deal with.

               Stashower also focuses on how the detectives were driven to solve a case even as they sometimes acted on prejudices that most people at the time had.  For instance, there was a belief that the killer was a sexual deviant, which definition at the time included homosexuality. Stashower points out this homophobia but also highlights the fact that some of the detectives were educating themselves on the topic of deviancy as the case played out.

               Stashower’s writing is clear and concise.  Why it is clear that he admires the Ness and the others, he is not blind to their faults.  The book is far from a hagiography of Ness in term of his work ethic and style, and Stashower is sympathetic to the women in Ness’ life who had to deal with his late nights and constant on the go and never at home work style. 

               If you like historic true crime, this a very good read.