At the height of the Jazz Age, when Prohibition was turning ordinary citizens into criminals and ordinary criminals into celebrities, America's true crime detective magazines were born. True Detective came first in 1924, and by 1934, when the Great Depression had produced colourful outlaws like Machine Gun Kelly, Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde "Twelve Murders solved when Texas Rangers Kill Clyde Barrow and his Moll", Baby Face Nelson, and John Dillinger, the magazines were so popular cops and robbers alike vied to see themselves on the pages. Even FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover wrote regularly for what came to be called the "Dickbooks," referring to a popular slang term for a detective. As the decades rolled on, the magazines went through a curious metamorphosis. When liquor was once more legal, the Depression over and all the flashy criminals dead or imprisoned, the "detectives" turned to sin to make sales. Sexy bad girls in tight sweaters, slit skirts, in wet barely-there underwear and stiletto heels adorned every cover and articles like "Sorry, I'm tied up right now!" and Co-eds offer free breast-feeding to men who give up smoking" on the cover of Spotlite. True Crime Detective Magazines follows the evolution and devolution of this distinctly American genre from 1924 to 1969 in scintillating, titillating chapters and confessional stories. Hundreds of covers and interior blazing colour images from dozens of magazine titles and posters tell the story, not just of the "detectives," but also of America's attitudes towards sex, sin, crime, and punishment over five decades. With texts by magazine collector Eric Godtland, George Hagenauer, and True Detective editor Marc Gerald. 15.6 x 21.7cm, 512 pages. New from Taschen.
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