Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

In narrating his social and political chronicle of the 18th Amendment, Okrent competently brings a divergent host of characters—both “wet” and “dry”—to life including Mabel Walker Willebrandt, a trailblazing female attorney, law enforcement official, and earnest reformer who found herself surrounded by considerably less zealous colleagues in the Treasury Department, and Canadian distiller Sam Bronfman, who transformed his renegade operations into the Seagram’s beverage empire. Okrent takes pains not to fall into familiar Hollywood caricatures in portraying such well-known icons of the era as Al Capone and Joseph P. Kennedy. In his reading, Okrent turns down the familiar noise of the flappers and machine-gun fire—without stinting on color—for a more nuts and bolts perspective. A Simon & Schuster hardcover (Reviews, Jan. 11). (June)