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Synopsis
Cincinnati, 1927. Lawyer George Remus, the country's biggest bootlegger, grosses over $80 million -- until his arrest. Upon his release from prison, "the king of the bootleggers" shoots his wife to death. The trial is a national spectacle.
Chris Barsanti
- Book Magazine
This novel, based on real-life events, opens in 1927, when infamous bootlegger George Remus guns down his soon-to-be-ex-wife, Imogene, on a city street with witnesses all around. Put on trial by prosecutor Charles Taft (son of the former president), Remus claims insanity as his defense. Crazy or not, he turns out to have had plenty to be angry about: The trial reveals that Imogene had taken up with federal agent Frank Dodge while Remus had been serving a two-year jail sentence. Imogene and Frank conspired to take Remus' business for themselves, trying to get Remus deported to Germany. Holden's novel features a series of flashbacks into the passionate, troubled stories of the trial's participants. Although the book is purportedly about the glamorous rich-girl-gone-bad Imogene (the book's title is her nickname), the reader is never really allowed inside her troubled head. Holden keeps both her and the larger-than-life Remus at a remove. 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.