During the Roaring Twenties it was a time when crime actually did pay; its influence was everywhere, and the life of a rival was worth as much as Confederate currency.

During the Roaring Twenties and lingering on into the 1930s and the Great Depression, America was a turbulent society, exploding with excitement, desperation and crime.

True-life tragedies and the highest murder rate of the century were fueling a new brand of fiction peopled by tough investigators and relentless heroes who were somehow bulletproof and unstoppable in their quests for justice.