The Art of Crime

Today, I'm re-releasing my interview with Michelle Young, author of The Art Spy, a riveting account of the life and heroics of Rose Valland, a museum curator who spied on the Nazis during their occupation of France in World War II. The paperback edition of The Art Spy just came out, so pick up a copy if you haven't already. For show notes and full transcripts, visit www.artofcrimepodcast.com. If you'd like to support the show, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/artofcrimepodcast.

Today, we're joined by historian Elyse Graham to talk about Book and Dagger, her riveting account of how the OSS, a precursor to the CIA, recruited scholars, artists, and activists to help the U.S. spy on the Nazis during World War II. If you'd like to suppor the show, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/artofcrimepodcast. For show notes and full transcripts, visit www.artofcrimepodcast.com.

Forty years ago, millions of Americans turned on their TVs to watch The Mysteries of Al Capone's Vault. In this live broadcast, construction workers blasted their way into a subterranean chamber beneath Chicago's Lexington Hotel, believed to have been a secret vault that belonged to the crime boss. My guest, William Elliott Hazelgrove, author of the new book, Capone's Vault, tells the story of how this broadcast got made and what investigators discovered underneath the Lexington once the cameras were rolling. If you'd like to support the show, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/artofcrimepodcast. For show notes and full transcripts, visit www.artofcrimepodcast.com.

Today, I'm joined by Alex Hortis, author of The Witch of New York, a riveting account of the 1843 trials of Polly Bodine. A resident of Staten Island, Bodine was accused of murdering her sister-in-law and her infant niece, sparking public outrage. Bodine went to trial not once, not twice, but three times for the crimes, and Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, and P.T. Barnum variously took part in the attendant media circus. If you'd like to support the show, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/artofcrimepodcast.

Today, we're joined by historian Bench Ansfield to talk about their breathtaking book, Born in Flames. It's about the arson wave of the 1970s, during which hundreds--yes, hundreds--of landlords in the Bronx set fire to their property to collect insurance. These crimes displaced thousands of Bronxites and killed a few, too. The crisis gae rise to a genre of sensationalist films Bench calls Bronxploitation that foreground poverty and vice in the borough. If you'd like to support the show, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/artofcrimepodcast.