Public Enemies [Film Tie-in]: The True Story of America's Greatest Crime Wave - Hardcover

Burrough, Bryan

3.98

5,818 ratings by Goodreads

9780713998283: Public Enemies [Film Tie-in]: The True Story of America's Greatest Crime Wave

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0713998288 ISBN 13: 9780713998283

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2004

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In the summer of 1933 an amazing group of chancers, misfits and psychopaths took to the American road. Fuelled by the Depression, fast cars and cheap guns, these freelance gangsters terrorized a vast swathe of banks and drugstores across the Midwest. Bonnie and Clyde, Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Baby Face Nelson, the Barker gang, Pretty Boy Floyd and others went on a crime spree that turned them into legends in their own - generally quite brief - lifetimes.

As they tore across state lines, mocking the police and amassing fortunes, the gangsters had no idea that in Washington their nemesis was forming: J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Public Enemies is the sensational story of the outlaws whose exploits became folklore, and the savage, myth-making response of those who hunted them down.

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Review:

Brims with vivid portraiture ... Excellent true crime. ("The New York Times Book Review") An amazingly detailed true-life thriller... ("Entertainment Weekly", A) It is hard to imagine a more careful, complete and entrancing book on the subject, and on this era. ("The Washington Post") [A] riveting true-crime tale... Fascinating... The real story, it turns out, is much better than the Hollywood version. ("The Wall Street Journal") Massively researched, ludicrously entertaining.("Time ") Spellbinding... A model of narrative journalism and [a] gripping read. ("BusinessWeek")

"Brims with vivid portraiture ... Excellent true crime." --The New York Times Book Review

"An amazingly detailed true-life thriller..." --Entertainment Weekly

"It is hard to imagine a more careful, complete and entrancing book on the subject, and on this era." --The Washington Post

"[A] riveting true-crime tale... Fascinating... The real story, it turns out, is much better than the Hollywood version." --The Wall Street Journal

"Spellbinding... A model of narrative journalism and [a] gripping read." --BusinessWeek

-Brims with vivid portraiture ... Excellent true crime.- --The New York Times Book Review

-An amazingly detailed true-life thriller...- --Entertainment Weekly

-It is hard to imagine a more careful, complete and entrancing book on the subject, and on this era.- --The Washington Post

-[A] riveting true-crime tale... Fascinating... The real story, it turns out, is much better than the Hollywood version.- --The Wall Street Journal

-Spellbinding... A model of narrative journalism and [a] gripping read.- --BusinessWeek

From the Back Cover:

Entrancing ... definitive ... a wild and amazing story' Washington Post

In 1933 a crime wave blazed across America. Fuelled by cheap liquor and fast cars, gangs of chancers, bank robbers, gunslingers and their molls cut a murderous, cash-snatching dash through the US - and became
legends. Among them were homicidal Baby Face Nelson, outlaws Bonnie and Clyde, cranky hillbilly Ma Barker and, most deadly of all, the suave gentleman criminal John Dillinger.

This is the breakneck story of America's most wanted, and their nemesis: J. Edgar Hoover and his strong-arm law enforcers, the agents of the FBI. Using shocking secret files and eyewitness accounts, Public Enemies reveals the facts about the crime spree that shook America.

'Seriously exciting ... crackles and pops with dialogue so outrageous that you suspect a dozen scriptwriters have worked on it, but every word is true' Spectator

'Excellent true crime ... brims with vivid portraiture' The New York Times

'It makes a good tale, and Burroughs tells it well, in all its horrible detail' Literary Review

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