** spoiler alert ** 
 The lengthy author's note at the end of the book cleared up a lot of things I had been questioning, so I'm giving this four stars. Moose was a great guy and though sometimes frustrating, I thought his level of manners and respect for all the adult characters was very accurate for the time period. His mother was quite a piece of work and I still feel angry that she didn't have more of a revelation about how badly she had been treating her son all his life! Grrr. 
 The ending also bothered me until the author's note explained that it was not uncommon for Al Capone to do charitable works...between murders. I guess it's a quirk of history, but I didn't love that the author seemed to make this horrible criminal the hero of the story...