Dollface: A Novel of the Roaring Twenties
In her first novel for adults, Chicago writer Rosen presents starry-eyed Vera Abramowitz, who longs to escape the life her single mother plans for her, working in the family’s stockyard and meatpacking plant. Vera wants to run with a far more glamorous crowd. Slaving away at menial jobs, she barely earns a subsistence living, but it’s enough to put her in proximity to the city’s Jazz Age action. It is her good and bad fortune to meet and fall in love with two of Chicago’s up-and-coming mobsters, from competing North Side and South Side gangs. And though her passion may be inflamed by Capone henchman Tony Liollo, she marries the relatively safer Shep Green, a flashy bootlegger who battles Capone for control of Chicago’s illegal liquor sales. As Vera morphs from a down-at-heels working girl into a gin-and-gems flapper, she unwittingly finds herself at the heart of one of Chicago’s most notorious Prohibition episodes, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. With the rat-a-tat tempo  of a Tommy gun, Rosen delivers a smart and snappy shot of Roaring Twenties drama. --Carol Haggas