For readers of Elmore Leonard and George Pelecanos, a tense crime novel set in mob-filled Chicago during the 1920s Prohibition

It’s 1920 and the start of Prohibition. Circumstances beyond his control find a young man, Huckabee Waller, involved in the death of a gangster in his hometown of New Orleans. Fearing repercussions from the gangster’s associates, Huck hops a northbound freight and heads for the promise of Chicago.

Expecting to make an honest living, he’s surprised to find that he’s arrived at the epicenter of crime, corruption, and commerce. Unable to find legitimate work, he gets mixed up in bare-knuckle fights run by the notorious North Side Gang. Reviving his skills as a club fighter, Huck quickly becomes a crowd favorite and makes enough to get by. When it becomes apparent to him that the gang is also heavily involved in running illegal whiskey, a very profitable enterprise, he’s drawn into their world by the desire for more.

As Huck starts running booze across the Canadian border for the North Side Gang and gets tangled up in Chicago’s taxi wars, tensions between them and the South Side Gang flare up, and soon he’s in the crosshairs of enforcer Al Capone. The smart thing to do would be to get out of Chicago — fast — that is if the life he wants to leave behind doesn’t kill him first.

Dietrich Kalteis’s short stories have been published widely, and his screenplay Between Jobs was a finalist in the 2003 Los Angeles Screenplay Festival. Kalteis lives in West Vancouver, British Columbia. This is his first novel.

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“Kalteis has written a tough, epic, historical noir that covers the most tumultuous decade in Chicago's mob history. ... As the body count rises, Kalteis's punchy, hard-boiled prose vividly captures the brutality behind the glitz of the Jazz Age.” — firstCLUE

“Dirty Little War has moments that encourage quick reading and fast page turning, and pending violence at the hands of erratic and mercurial characters can keep you guessing about who is on whose side.” — New York Journal Review of Books