Legs

Legs, the inaugural book in William Kennedy's acclaimed Albany cycle of novels, brilliantly evokes the flamboyant career of gangster Jack ""Legs"" Diamond. Through the equivocal eyes of Diamond's attorney, Marcus Gorman (who scraps a promising political career for the more elemental excitement of the criminal underworld), we watch as Legs and his showgirl mistress, Kiki Roberts, blaze their gaudy trail across the tabloid pages of the 1920s and 1930s.