I Worked for Lucky Luciano

A few years after the fall of Chicago’s Al Capone in 1931, Italian born gangster Charles “Lucky” Luciano took the throne as the American Mafia's "lord of vice" . . . gambling, horse races, drug rings, murder for hire, etc., controlling the cops and politicians of St. Tammany Hall, muscling out or murdering all the other crime kingpins in the area. New York's ambitious special prosecutor, Tom Dewey, was hell-bent on putting Luciano behind bars. He finally got him, in 1936, on the charge of running a lucrative prostitution ring. This book, published in 1954, relates the story of one high-end hooker, who revealed to the author (a reporter covering the trial), what being a slave of the Luciano vice ring was like. She tells how she got trapped into it, backgrounds of she and some other aberrated girls, where they were housed, what they were paid, how they were dressed and treated, their emotional challenges, what type of high rollers hired their services, and how she and other girls fared after Luciano's incarceration. It's a fascinating story, written by and about persons whose identities, for safety reasons, have had to be kept hidden. She said "The years of fast living, of fear of the Syndicate's goons, or police action, have left their mark on me. . . . I fervently hope the sordid details of my past life will serve as a constant reminder to parents and young people alike so they can prevent others from making the same horrible mess of their lives that I did." - Summary by Michele Fry