A crime wave that swept across Kentucky in the 1960s and 1970s is the focus of a new book penned by Wes Swietek, managing editor for the Bowling Green Daily News.

“When The Bluegrass Ran Red” is published by Acclaim Press and is the second title written by Swietek, following up on “The Cemetery Road Murders,” released in 2020, that told the story of an infamous double murder at Bowling Green’s “Murder Mansion” in 1948.

“After I wrote the previous book … so many people said ‘you should write about the Little Chicago era,’ ” Swietek said.

Little Chicago is the name often affixed to Bowling Green after a crime wave in the 1960s and early 1970s. Swietek said the rise in corruption and crime spanned statewide.

Newport, directly across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, was nationally known as a “Sin City” during this period.

Swietek described Newport then as a “forerunner” of what Las Vegas would become.

“It was basically a mob-run city,” Swietek said. “It was the gambling capital of the southeast.”

Other focuses of the book include the kidnapping of a prominent banker and his daughter in Lewisburg, the murder of a Lexington co-ed and the still-unsolved killing of Kentucky State Trooper William Barrett. Moonshiners, vehicle thefts and bombings all receive attention as well.

“It was just a cornucopia of crime and corruption and murder that people still talk about today,” Swietek said.

“When The Bluegrass Ran Red” is out now, available at Barnes and Noble locations across the state and online wherever books are sold.

In Bowling Green, the book is also available at the L&N Depot gift shop and Corvette Museum gift shop.

Swietek will lead a presentation about the book at the Capitol in downtown Bowling Green at 6 p.m. on March 17, where he will be discussing the book, signing copies and answering questions from the audience.

The event is free to attend and 100 copies of “When The Bluegrass Ran Red” will be given away.

Swietek said he hopes the book introduces new knowledge to lovers of history and true crime.

“Hopefully, it reveals a lot of things that people don’t realize about that era that they still talk about,” he said. “Some of the stories are stranger than fiction.”