Description

On the night of August 6 1930 Joseph Force Crater a newly appointed judge and prominent figure in many circles of Manhattan hailed a taxi in the heart of Broadway and vanished into thin air Despite a decadeslong international manhunt led by the New York Police Departments esteemed Missing Persons Bureau the reason for Craters disappearance remains a confounding mystery In the early months of the investigation evidence implicated and imperiled New Yorks top officials including thenGovernor Franklin D Roosevelt and Mayor Jimmy Walker as well as the citys Tammany Hall political machine lawyers and judges and a theater mogul

Drawing on new sources including NYPD case files and court records and overlooked evidence discovered years later Riegel pieces together the puzzle of what likely happened to Joseph Crater and why To uncover the mystery he delves into Craters ascension into the scintillating and corrupt world of Manhattan in the Roaring Twenties and Jazz Age In turn the story of the judges vanishing amid the Great Depression unfolds as a harbinger of the disappearance of his lost metropolis and its transformation into modernday New York City