Book Review: Green, S. P. (2006). Lying, Cheating, and Stealing: A Moral Theory of White-Collar Crime. New York: Oxford University Press. 240 pp

• Author: Neal Shover
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016809331775
• Published date: 01 September 2009
• Date: 01 September 2009
• Subject Matter: Articles

Book Reviews 453

homicides existed for Italians; nor did wife and husband homicides. Honor killings, char-

acterized by stabbings with the infamous Stiletto, dispatched brothers, fathers, and cousins

in personal vendettas. Black Hand gangs, morphing to Mafia, stymied law enforcement

with their code of silence. The Chicago police created a special Italian detective squad in

1910, because, according to the chief, “it takes an Italian to catch an Italian.” Though

Italian names will sprinkle throughout the 1920s, the hysteria and interest preceded that

period and peaked in the murder and Hollywoodesque funeral of Big Jim Colisimo in May

1920.

Technology had an impact on homicide. Automobiles arrived with a sputter then a roar.

In 1900, 400 cars clanked around Chicago; 20 years later there were 90,000. Obviously this

led to accidental killings, forcing new legal conceptualization like negligent homicide. But

it also enabled new holdup men. Gangs of robbers ruthlessly killed their victims and sped

away. Perhaps the most famous robbery homicide occurred in 1903 at the 61st Car Barn by

a self-styled “semi automatic trio” using a new form of pistol to murder two.

Though Alder’s book is about homicide, there is much more. Murder becomes a marker

of much larger social issues. The nature of a bachelor drinking culture, the extent and

strains on immigrant families, the arrival and adjustments of Blacks and Italians, the

impacts of new technologies, and adjustments in the criminal law are explored. The

author’s research is prodigious and his writing style is engaging. This is a book for a wide

audience. Historians, criminologists, and the general public will find it worth the read.

Any criticisms must be small. Some confusion occurs with his abundant use of numbers:

percentages and rates. In one place there was one licensed saloon per 53 Chicagoans in

1880, but 15 pages later it was one per 160. In another place the average age of wife killers

was 38 but four pages later it was 39.

Many historians today strive to be so literary that they cloud rather than clarify the archi-

tecture of their books. Perhaps this is because so many journalists have become widely

known as historians. Adler’s chapters all start with a quote that takes a bit of reading to

figure out what the subject rally will be. For example, “A Butcher at the Stockyard” ends

up being about robbers who kill. “A Good Place to Drown Babies” spends most of its pages

on accidental killing by automobile. Even the title of the book begs the colon for its real

subject. Such small points must not detract from the overall quality of this book. This

reviewer only wishes the historian’s profession would rethink its overuse of the colon.

Perhaps an intellectual colonoscopy is in order.

Frank Morn

Illinois State University, Normal

Green, S. P. (2006). Lying, Cheating, and Stealing: A Moral Theory of White-Collar Crime.

New York: Oxford University Press. 240 pp.

DOI: 10.1177/0734016809331775

The relationships between crime, law, and morality have interested scholars for centuries,

and Lying, Cheating, and Stealing is securely in this tradition of inquiry. In contrast to