In the winter of 1930, an unprecedented force for good emerged from the chaos of crime-ridden Chicago: The Secret Six. Supported by the Windy City's richest and most powerful businesspeople, the vigilantes took on extortionists, bombers, bank robbers, kidnappers, and eventually Al Capone himself. Using the latest crime-fighting technologies, the Secret Six caught dirty cops, won convictions in cases large and small, and helped launch Eliot Ness and his Untouchables. And when Capone went to prison, he credited the Secret Six for bringing him down. Operating like America's first national police force, the Secret Six inspired a movie featuring Clark Gable, testified before Congress, and wrote authoritatively about crime for the national press. Quickly, cities throughout America began emulating the Secret Six with their own vigilante forces.

But there was a dark side to the heroics and international praise. Wealth, unchecked power, and the raw spirit of vigilantism corrupted the Secret Six from their inception. They victimized the innocent, tortured the guilty, and bragged about it, and after three years of lies, mistakes and misdeeds that were as laughable as they were tragic, the effort collapsed in disgrace. Nearly forgotten, the Secret Six lives again in these pages, the true story told in full for the first time about what happens when good men in a vast city take the law into their own hands.