The Amboy Dukes (novel)

The novel concerns the misadventures of a 1940s Jewish street gang of young toughs based on Amboy Street in the working class Brownsville section of Brooklyn (Brownsville, from its founding into the 1950s, was a primarily Jewish neighborhood).

[2] The Amboy Dukes was considered somewhat outré, unsavory, and shocking for its time,[citation needed] as it depicts its teenage juvenile delinquent protagonists fighting, smoking marijuana reefers, cutting class, using foul language, carrying homemade zip guns, having sex, abusing girls, and being generally vicious.

[citation needed] The hardback first edition featured an anodyne line drawing on its cover.

Cry Tough (1949) has Amboy Duke Mitch Wolf return from prison and get involved with organized crime.

In The Big Brokers (1951), Mitch and former Dukes Bull and Larry get deep into syndicate operations in Las Vegas.