Mike Dash is a master of atmospheric and entertaining historical narrative. In Satan's Circus he vividly opens up the world of twentieth-century New York, telling the gripping story of police officer Charley Becker's rise and fall and of the sensational murder trials that led to his gruesome death in the electric chair. With a cast of colourful characters, from Big Tim Sullivan, the election-rigging vice lord, to future President Theodore Roosevelt and beloved gangster Jack Zelig, Satan's Circus brings to life an almost forgotten Gotham - a raucous, gaudy and utterly corrupt city.

Book of the week ... With an eye for crime-world factoids and period detail, Dash introduces us to prostitutes and underbelly dwellers with monikers like "Kid Twist" ... [P]eople looking for a walk on the grimy side of prewar New York are in for a treat * Time Out New York *
If the story that Mike Dash tells in Satan's Circus sometimes seems like a chapter from Gangs of New York, that's because it is ... This is a true-crime thriller - but it is also a portrait of the end of an era * The Telegraph *
Satan's Circus is a thrilling, atmospheric story peopled with outlandish characters, but it also conveys a profound understanding of how New York's criminals, policemen and politicians conspired on a systematic basis * Sunday Express *

Mike Dash is the author of five previous books, including the bestsellers Tulipomania and Batavia's Graveyard and the recent Thug, also published by Granta.A Cambridge educated historian, he lives in London.