The roaring Twenties, organized crime, crooked politicians, the assault on the newspaper industry by big money, sex, love, romance; Truth to Power by J.S. Matlin has it all.  Only it still manages to fall flat.  The book, broken into three subsections, begins in 1924 with the central character, David Driscoll, pulling into a town called St. Luke in the American Midwest.  Humiliated by the discovery of his dalliance with the editor-in-chief’s wife and an unethical arrangement with an advertiser, he is sent packing from his first job at The St. Louis Star to a smalltown newspaper called The St. Luke Bugle.

More than 100 rare artifacts are displayed at the American Spirits exhibit, including such curiosities as the original paraphernalia for making moonshine at home, ratification copies of the 18^th and 21st Amendments and a collection of Roaring Twenties dresses. The flask collection alone show you how far camouflage was carried to hide the “hooch.”  One bar set, “Mr. Dry,” is in the shape of a casket, with the cork-headed corpse concealing a corkscrew body.  Even Carrie Nation’s own hatchet from one of many barroom-smashing raids is on display.