Murder, Inc. and the Moral Life: Gangsters and Gangbusters in La Guardia's New York focuses on the dramatic trials of a group of Brooklyn gangsters in 1940 and 1941. The media nicknamed the gangsters "Murder, Inc.," and that nickname quickly became a kind of free-floating "meme," linked at various times to criminals in general; to a record label; and even to a Bruce Springsteen song. The 1940-1941 trials inspired a wave of media coverage, several books and memoirs, and a sub-genre of the gangster film. The trials concluded with a notorious and unsolved murder mystery.

Murder, Inc. narrates the life and times of the Brooklyn gang, and also relates their lives both to New York's Roaring Twenties and Depression era gangs and to the wider "gangster" culture expressed especially in the film. At the same time, Murder, Inc., is a moral reflection on the gangsters; the gangbusters, like Fiorello La Guardia and Thomas Dewey, who opposed them; and popular culture's fascination with "gangsterism." It is especially this combination of crime story and moral reflection that makes Murder, Inc. unique.