‘The Starker’ also reveals new details about an early murder mystery

(Long Island, N.Y.) Like Al Capone in Chicago, the name Big Jack Zelig was synonymous with fear in New York City. Zelig Zvi Lefkowitz (aka “Big Jack Zelig”) was New York City’s first great Jewish gangster boss and ruled New York’s Lower East Side with an iron fist from 1910-1912. However it was his assignation before testifying as a star witness in a murder trial that created an intricate web of mystery in Ne York’s social and legal scene. Author Rose Keefe recounts the life of Zelig, his rise to the top of New York’s underworld, and reveals for the first time who the mobster was going to expose as a murderer on the stand in The Starker: Big Jack Zelig, The Becker-Rosenthal Case, and the Advent of the Jewish Gangster (ISBN-13: 978-1-58182-602-9, $24.95, Hardcover, October 2008).

Corrupt cops were not unusual in the Prohibition era, but Lieutenant Charles Becker reached new heights when he found himself accused of murder in the death of gambler Herman Rosenthal. Although Becker was the head of the New York Police Department’s strong arm squads, and was responsible for the eradicating gang activity in Manhattan, it was the boss Zelig that was prepared to testify on his behalf and absolve him of the charges against him. Zelig knew who the real killers were, but his gruesome assassination two days before he was scheduled to take the stand sealed Becker’s fate. Becker, wrongly accused, died in the electric chair for the murder. But who was Zelig going to point the finger at, who ordered Zelig killed, and why? Keefe reveals that Zelig’s murder was a political assassination, and not in retaliation for an alleged robbery as legend claimed. Dozens of interviews and years of painstaking research also lead Keefe to reveal for the first time, the truth about who ordered Rosenthal murdered and why.

Accented by a 16-page photo insert, The Starker introduces readers to a story from New York’s criminal past that is dazzling in its audacity and criminal in the subsequent success of the people responsible for the murders committed to cover up their own crimes.

ROSE KEEFE is the author of Guns and Roses: The Untold Story of Dean O’Banion, Chicago’s Big Shot Before Al Capone and The Man Who Got Away: The Bugs Moran Story. She appears regularly on television and radio specials about America’s gangster past.

http://www.amazon.com/Starker-Becker-Rosenthal-Advent-Jewish-Gangster/dp/1581826028
http://www.rosekeefe.com

Books by Rose Keefe
http://books.google.com/books?as_auth=Rose+Keefe&source=an&sa=X&oi=book_group&resnum=5&ct=title&cad=author-navigational

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