Henry "Hank" Hicks Messick (August 14, 1922 – November 6, 1999) was an American

investigative journalist Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years rese ...

and author, specializing in writing about

organized crime Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally tho ...

. He was best known for his biography of

Meyer Lansky Meyer Lansky (born Maier Suchowljansky; July 4, 1902 – January 15, 1983), known as the "Mob's Accountant", was an American organized crime figure who, along with his associate Lucky Luciano, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was instrumental in the deve ...

. Messick was born in Happy Valley,

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia a ...

. He received a master's degree from the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 coll ...

. He started his journalism career working at several newspapers in North Carolina. From 1957 to 1963 he worked at the

Louisville Courier-Journal The ''Courier Journal'', also known as the ''Louisville Courier Journal'' (and informally ''The C-J'' or ''The Courier''), and called ''The Courier-Journal'' between November 8, 1868, and October 29, 2017, is the highest circulation newspape ...

where he reported on the extensive illegal gambling activities in

Newport, Kentucky Newport is a home rule-class city at the confluence of the Ohio and Licking rivers in Campbell County, Kentucky. The population was 15,273 at the 2010 census. Historically, it was one of four county seats of Campbell County. Newport is a major ...

. From 1963 to 1966 he worked at the '' Miami Herald'', where he investigated

police corruption Police corruption is a form of police misconduct in which law enforcement officers end up breaking their political contract and Abuse of power, abuse their power for personal gain. This type of corruption may involve one or a group of officers. I ...

. He briefly worked for the Boston Traveler in 1967, but was fired after investigating the business activities of Joseph Linsey, one of the newspapers' shareholders and a former associate of mobster Charles "King" Solomon. He then worked full-time as an author, writing 19 books. He mostly wrote about organized crime in places outside

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

and

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, such as

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virgini ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the archi ...

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U ...

and Hollywood.
The Mob-Chaser As Country Boy
'' The Washington Post, May 20, 1978

Bibliography

*196
''The Silent Syndicate''
*1968 ''Syndicate in the Sun'' *1968 ''Syndicate Wife: The Story of Ann Drahmann Coppola'' *1969 ''Syndicate Abroad'' *1969 ''Secret File'' *1971 ''Lansky'' *1972 ''John Edgar Hoover: An Inquiry into the Life and Times of John Edgar Hoover and His Relationship to the Continuing Partnership of Crime, Business, and Politics'' *1972 ''The Mobs and the Mafia: The Illustrated History of Organized Crime'' (with Burt Goldblatt) *1973 ''The Private Lives of Public Enemies'' (with Joseph L. Nellis) *1974 ''The Beauties and the Beasts: The Mob in Show Business'' *1974 ''Gangs and Gangsters: The Illustrated History of Gangs from Jesse James to Murph the Surf'' (with Burt Goldblatt) *1975 ''Barboza'' (written with

Joseph Barboza Joseph Barboza Jr. (; September 20, 1932 – February 11, 1976), nicknamed "the Animal", was an American mobster and notorious mob hitman for the Patriarca crime family of New England during the 1960s. A prominent enforcer and contract killer i ...

) *1974 ''Kidnapping: The Illustrated History from Its Origins to the Present'' (with Burt Goldblatt) *1976 ''The Only Game in Town: An Illustrated History of Gambling'' (with Burt Goldblatt) *1976 ''King's Mountain: The Epic of the Blue Ridge Mountain Men in the American Revolution'' *1978 ''The Politics of Prosecution: Jim Thompson, Marie Everett, Richard Nixon, and the Trial of Otto Kerner'' *1979 ''Of Grass and Snow: The Secret Criminal Elite'' *1987 ''Desert Sanctuary'' *1995 ''Razzle Dazzle''

References

* May, Allan.
Sterling, Roemer and Messick: A Sad Farewell
'. AmericanMafia.com. {{DEFAULTSORT:Messick, Hank American investigative journalists American male journalists 20th-century American journalists Organized crime memoirists Non-fiction writers about organized crime in the United States 1922 births 1999 deaths University of Iowa alumni