Public Enemies
America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34
Recommended by Keith Slotter, and 1 others. See all reviewsRanked #49 in Criminology, Ranked #52 in Public
"ludicrously entertaining" (Time), Public Enemies is the story of the most spectacular crime wave in American history, the two-year battle between the young J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI, and an assortment of criminals who became national icons: John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Barkers. In an epic feat of storytelling, Burrough reveals a web of interconnections within the vast American underworld and demonstrates how Hoover's... more
Reviews and Recommendations
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Keith Slotter Well, I have nothing against the movie – it was great. But it really just focuses on the arch villain John Dillinger and the FBI man Melvin Purvis dynamic with very little else. And they are great characters so it makes sense to do it that way. But the book really accomplishes, better than any other book or movie I have seen, a good look at that violent fantastic gangster era in the 1930s. And the book doesn’t just focus on Dillinger, but on all the players: Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd and Bonnie and Clyde. It was a really, really Wild West period for the United States, mainly out in... (Source)
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