"Karlen offers a colorful and impressively researched account of the Minneapolis underworld and his fascinating relative that feels right out of Damon Runyon's Guys and Dolls." --Star Tribune

"Deliciously snappy." --American Jewish World

"Karlen brings back the days when Peggy Lee walked into Augie's straight off the bus from North Dakota, when mid-century celebrities like Frank Sinatra visited Hennepin Avenue, and when the most powerful crime lords in the land checked their guns at the door when they visited Augie's." --MinnPost

"Augie's Secrets is filled with stunning, stylish prose that captures the flavor of the Jewish underworld of downtown Minneapolis down to its last rubout and pastrami sandwich." --Paul Maccabee, author of John Dillinger Slept Here: A Crooks' Tour of Crime and Corruption in St. Paul, 1920-1936
A treasury of family secrets exposes the seamy underbelly of Minneapolis--gangsters, gambling, brothels, and the social life of organized crime.