04 Nov 2006

'Deep Water' earns endorsements
from Scott and Eshelman-Lee

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your interest in our book. We are excited to share with you two recent endorsements:

Deep Water is a memorable reading experience. It is both a vivid down-to-earth description of ante- and post-bellum New Orleans, and also significant history, with colorful documents and episodes from the lives of ordinary people. Once you start reading it, it is hard to put down. The denouement, the murder of Joseph Macheca in the midst of a mass lynching, has never before been told so closely from Macheca business records. This book will force a reassessment of a famous event in the history of American organized crime.

- Dr. Peter Dale Scott, Berkeley, CA

I have just finished the manuscript; couldn’t put it down since I began reading it yesterday afternoon—only interrupted by a night’s sleep. Bravo! It is brilliant work. Working with a tightly woven fabric of injustice, you have objectively and meticulously unstitched the legend for truth, as honestly as possible. Congratulations to you both for this wonderful contribution to Louisiana and American history.

- Julie Eshelman-Lee, Fort Collins, CO

Dr. Scott is a retired professor of English at the University of California at Berkeley. He has authored and co-authored several books on organized crime conspiracies and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, including Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. He testified on government record-keeping deficiencies before the Assassination Archives Review Board in Washington D.C. in 1994. He has also written extensively on U.S. foreign relations and served as a diplomat in the late 1950s for his native Canada.

Ms. Eshelman-Lee was born in New Orleans, a descendant of some of Louisiana's founding families. She has researched and written about early Louisiana history. Her works include a biography of Confederate Major Benjamin Eshelman and an educational program on the impact of the Louisiana Purchase on the Pointe Coupee Parish region. She is founder and director of Creole West Productions, which produces technology-based history instruction.

We are honored that Dr. Scott and Ms. Eshelman-Lee took time from their busy schedules to read our manuscript and provide us with such encouraging comments. Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia is currently in production.