Being a deep delve into accounts of sin and crime in Omaha's frontier days, the vehicle for which is a crawl through a local newspaper called the Bee during the 1880's, with quick looks at the seventies, the gaslight and ragtime eras, and beyond. The book is well-illustrated, albeit with the pictures not always congruent with the text. I enjoyed this book a great deal; coverage includes murder, gambling, and even an opium den or two, but the real stars are the Cyprians, including names and addresses. The book could use a bit more authorial voice; much of the time I felt as though I was reading the newspaper, which is fine to a point, but a wider vision incorporating the socio-political context in which all of this befell the young city was welcome when it appeared and the book would have benefitted from more. ( )