Jim Ridings
Born: 1950 Joliet, Illinois
Pen Name: None Connection to Illinois: Ridings lives in Herscher. Biography: Jim Ridings graduated from Southern Illinois University with a degree in journalism. He worked on daily newspapers in Ottawa and Aurora, Illinois, and won awards for investigative reporting at both newspapers. He has authored more than a dozen books of local history, which have won awards from the Illinois State Historical Society and the Illinois Humanities Council.
Awards:
- """County West"""
- -- Illinois State Historical Society Award """County West Companion"""
- -- Illinois State Historical Society Award """Card
Jim Ridings on WorldCat : http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=jim+ridings
Selected Titles
| Chicago to Springfield : ISBN: 9781439625736 OCLC: 709780050 Arcadia Pub., Charleston, SC : ©2010. The story of Chicago gangsters in the 1920s is legendary. Less talked about is the tale of the politicians who allowed those gangsters to thrive. During the heyday of organized crime in the Prohibition era, Chicago mayor Big Bill Thompson and Gov. Len Small were the two most powerful political figures in Illinois. Thompson campaigned on making Chicago a wide open town for bootleggers. Small sold thousands of pardons and paroles to criminals, embezzled $1 million, and was then acquitted after mobsters bribed the jury. This book is the story of those Jazz Age politicians whose careers in government thrived on and endorsed corruption and racketeering, from Chicago to Springfield. It complements author Jim Ridings's groundbreaking biography, Len Small: Governors and Gangsters, which was praised by critics and situated Ridings as a trailblazer among Chicago crime authors. |
|
 |
Greetings from Starved Rock : ISBN: 0982408099 OCLC: 758981167 Side Show Books, Herscher, IL : ©2011. |
 |
Kankakee County Confidential : ISBN: 9780692787014 OCLC: 978353844 |
| Len Small : ISBN: 0982408005 OCLC: 435530102 Side Show Books, Herscher, IL : ©2009. "Len Small was governor of Illinois during most of the 1920s. Almost all of Al Capone's career in Chicago happened at the same time, and there definitely was a tie between the governor and the gangster ..."--Back cover. |
|
 |
Ottawa / ISBN: 0738588571 OCLC: 738363666 Arcadia Pub., Charleston, S.C. : ©2011. |
 |
Wild Kankakee : ISBN: 9780982408087 OCLC: 806230492 Side Show Books, Herscher, IL : ©2012. |