Broadway Butterfly: Vivian Gordon

<b>A riveting, uniquely in-depth account of the sensational murder that captivated Jazz Age New York City, obsessed its then-governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, pulled back the veil on widespread corruption and political abuse, and led to the downfall of its mayor, from the Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist and author of <i>The Deadly Don</i>.</b><br><br>Like so many other pretty butterflies, Indiana-born Vivian Gordon fluttered to New York in 1920 looking for fame and fortune. Before long, the flame-haired chorus girl parlayed her youth, beauty, and ambition into more profitable means as a tough and glamorous symbol of Prohibition-era excess. She was a speakeasy owner, blackmailer, high-end escort, extortionist, racketeer, and con woman. But given her dangerously intimate associations—from ruthless underworld gangsters to corrupt high-ranking city officials—Vivian was also a woman who knew too much and who rightfully feared for her life.<br><br>On February 26, 1931, Vivian’s bludgeoned and garroted body was found dumped in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx. Now, this definitive book unravels her tumultuous life and the<br>headline-making murder that became an obsession for so many.<br><br>The evidence Vivian left behind was damnin a diary with more than 300 names implicating powerful officials, philanthropists, businessmen, and every major gangland figure in collusion and corruption. The probe eventually resulted in the career-ending investigation of James “Jimmy” Walker, disgraced mayor of New York City. Ultimately, <i>Broadway Butterfly</i> finally finds a place in history for Vivian, a woman with a rare legacy in gangster lore, whose demise was as tragically inevitable as the brutality of the cozy relationship between the Mob and the NYPD.