On 25th December 1921, Santa Claus made the most drastic error of his career. A mistake in his chimney orientation meant that while intending to visit a tenement building in Chicago's poorest area, he instead found himself face to face with the city's most notorious gangster. It was a mistake that was to change the course of Christmas - and would nearly destroy the Christmas icon's very existence. Saint or Sinner? is the culmination of years of painstaking research. Through articles, interviews, official documents and eye-witness reports, the work exposes Santa's rise through gangland in the ten years that followed this fateful meeting. Prostitution, smuggling, theft, violence, extortion and even murder are seen not only to have been embraced by Christmas's most celebrated personification, but perfected by him in the creation of gangland's most brutal empire.*"An unsettling account of our darkest period." - An anonymous elf."He always seemed so friendly - it just goes to show."- Stephen J. Brookes' mum."Disturbing." - Noddy Holder.
