His novel

Those who declined the offer received threats of sabotage and often death. Lansky and Los Chicos ran their criminal enterprises almost unchallenged until 1933, when they found themselves in troubled waters in the political arena. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had emerged victorious at the 1932 Democratic National Convention with the support of the Lansky-controlled political bosses, soon turned against his old allies and launched an all-out war against organized crime. That move made him so popular that local politicians across the country took his lead. New York Governor Herbert Lehman appointed a politically ambitious young man named Thomas Dewey as special prosecutor to bring the mobsters to justice. Dewey set about his task with fervor, lashing out at the bouncers across the spectrum of suspect sectors. However, the onslaught of his prosecutorial fury fell especially hard on Lepke and Gurrah, whom he considered "the two biggest extortionists in the country." Realizing t