Overview

On the day she was murdered, Myrtle Underwood Cook boasted to local authorities about new evidence of a major bootlegging ring operating out of the Rock Island train depot behind her house in a small town in eastern Iowa. Then, as she sat at her window sewing, she took a single slug through the heart. She was president of the local temperance union; her killing made the front page of the New York Times. The next day her funeral made national news due to the eerie presence of a small army from the Ku Klux Klan, its members, donned in full regalia, drawn from three surrounding states. It was September 1925, and Al Capone had just taken over the Chicago Outfit, evangelist Billy Sunday was converting thousands to temperance, and the KKK had marched on Washington, DC. During its first half century of statehood, Iowa lurched from wet to dry and back eight times before Prohibition was ratified in 1919. And when Iowa was still a territory, its Black Codes imprinted generations with a legacy of intolerance and racism. Mrs. Cook and the Klan is a true crime investigation that not only sheds new light on Myrtle Underwood Cook's unsolved killing but also explores the confluence of the social, political, and economic forces that brought the Klan, street gangs, a local mob boss, and the temperance movement together in a small American town.

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Tom Chorneau spent nearly thirty years as a journalist, including more than a decade as an investigative reporter for the Associated Press and the San Francisco Chronicle. He is the author of three works of fiction, including Victim Eleven. David Lee Garver (SAG-AFTRA/AEA) is an audiobook narrator, an award-winning actor, and a lifelong musician. He started performing at an early age in children's and community theaters in the Midwest before embarking on a professional career in film, television, and stage. He brings decades of performance experience into the booth, and feels fortunate every day to work in a medium that marries all of his skills. His voice has a gritty yet warm quality, and is uniquely suited to a variety of books and characters. Some of his favorite genres include true crime, legal drama, mystery, romance, and especially music biography. David Lee Garver (SAG-AFTRA/AEA) is an audiobook narrator, an award-winning actor, and a lifelong musician. He started performing at an early age in children's and community theaters in the Midwest before embarking on a professional career in film, television, and stage. He brings decades of performance experience into the booth, and feels fortunate every day to work in a medium that marries all of his skills. His voice has a gritty yet warm quality, and is uniquely suited to a variety of books and characters. Some of his favorite genres include true crime, legal drama, mystery, romance, and especially music biography.

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