Paul R. Kavieff, an engineer at Wayne State University School of Medicine, has written a best-selling book on Detroit’s legendary Purple Gang.
“The Purple Gang: A History of the Detroit Underworld, 1910-1945” has climbed to the No. 3 rank on the Michigan best-sellers list. The book chronicles the evolution of a group of unruly street kids from Detroit’s East Side into a powerful city-wide mafia.
“Prohibition allowed this group of young men to become one of America’s most powerful and infamous bands of thugs and mobsters,” Kavieff said. “During the chaos of Prohibition, they rose to the highest ranks of organized crime – then self-destructed with greediness and betrayal.”
Kavieff, whose extensive personal library includes a number of first-edition historical works on organized crime, spent hundreds of hours over the past decade interviewing remaining Purple Gang members as well as relatives and friends of those who died. His research has taken him to numerous police departments, libraries, museums as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
The author, a graduate of Oakland University, is working on his master’s degree in U.S. social history at Wayne State University. “The Purple Gang” costs $22 and is published by Barricade Books. He will sign copies of his book at the following times and locations:
- Noon to 2 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 31, in Walden Books, Detroit Renaissance Center, Detroit;
- Noon to 2 p.m., Friday, Sept. 22, in L&L Books, Penobscot Building, Detroit;
- 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 27, Borders Books & Music, Birmingham;
- 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 30, Waldenbooks, Alpena;
- 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 7, Waldenbooks, Somerset Mall;
- 7 pm. to 3 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 11, Borders Books & Music, Farmington Hills; and
- 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 19, Barnes & Noble Books, Grosse Pointe Woods.