Gangbuster: One Man's Battle Against Crime, Corruption, and the Klan

Written by Alan Prendergast

Narrated by Gabriel Vaughan

At the height of the roaring 1920s, the ex-frontier town of Denver, Colorado, emerged from the postwar boom as the future of the American city. But the slick façade of progress and opportunity masked a murky stew of organized crime, elaborate swindles, and widespread government corruption.

Rookie district attorney Phillip Van Cise was already making national headlines for a new brand of law enforcement. Employing military intelligence tools he'd developed during the Great War, Van Cise crippled the criminal empire of Lou Blonger, an ex-lawman who had risen from petty scam artist to master of the Big Con. But Van Cise had even darker, more malevolent forces on his radar.

The Ku Klux Klan had emerged as a shockingly mainstream middle-class movement, all while claiming to protect true American values. Utilizing his pioneering surveillance techniques, Van Cise was determined to expose the Invisible Empire from within.

Gripping and exhaustively researched, this prescient chronicle of Phillip Van Cise's spectacular career as a feared gangbuster taking on organized crime, the KKK, and corruption at the highest levels of government is a cautionary tale that mirrors our tumultuous times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Mar 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798765075685

Alan Prendergast

Alan Prendergast is an award-winning journalist and author. His stories have appeared in a wide range of magazines and anthologies, including the true crime collection Seven Sins (2012), The Best American Crime Reporting 2008, and The Best American Sports Writing 2009. He has also written for Rolling Stone, Outside, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Men’s Journal, and other national publications, and is the author of The Poison Tree (1986), a book about child abuse and parricide that was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime.