A flavorful account of New York City politics during the 1920s Jazz Age centering on the intersecting careers of the city's popular "Night Mayor," Jimmy Walker, and the state's patrician governor, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mitgang's extensive use of newspaper quotes and legal transcripts helps paint vivid portraits of Walker, Roosevelt and the large cast of characters who played a part in Walker's fall from grace and Roosevelt's meteoric rise to four-term president.

Herbert Mitgang covered national, international, and New York cultural subjects as editorial writer and correspondent for The New York Times. He is author or editor of fifteen books in American history, law, literature, reportage, and fiction. He currently contributes to The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Nation, Newsday, and the Chicago Tribune. He lives in New York City.