The Whisky King, written by award-winning author Trevor Cole, is the remarkable true story of Canada’s most infamous bootlegger and the undercover Mountie on his trail.
Recently at the Grimsby Historical Society Monthly Lecture Series, members and guests were treated to an entertaining evening as award-winning author Trevor Cole shared the story of Rocco Perri, the King of Bootleggers. In the early 1920s, Rocco Perri was the most popular mob boss in Ontario earning one-million dollars a month bootlegging liquor from Hamilton, Ontario while the average citizen earned $600 annually. Rocco was a mob boss with ethics as he didn’t support the use of guns. He disappeared in the mid-1940s and no one really knows what happened to him. Was he murdered or did he disappear to Mexico with his fortune?
The Whisky King is a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and winner of the 2018 Arthur Ellis Award for Canada’s best nonfiction crime book.
Photos and Write Up by Grimsby Historical Society
