Bryan Burrough - Public enemies : Americas greatest crime wave and the birth of the FBI, 1933-34

Table of Contents

Praise for Public Enemies

Massively researched, ludicrously entertaining.

Time

[A] colorful new history of the early days of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.... [Burrough] has written a book that brims with vivid portraiture... Excellent true crime.

The New York Times Book Review

Public Enemies [is] Bryan Burroughs spellbinding new account of Americas first War on Crime... a model of narrative journalism and an often gripping read.

BusinessWeek

In the telling Mr. Burrough displays a genius for historical reconstruction and an attention to detail so vivid that the reader can almost smell Bonnie and Clyde, neither of whom showed much inclination to bathe during their months sleeping in cars or open fields when they were on the run.

The New York Times

Burroughs narrative is fast-paced, his prose captivating. Drawing upon several hundred thousand FBI documents, Burrough has conducted important new research. He re-creates in vivid detail the criminals whereabouts, characteristics, and ignominious rise to Depression-era fame.... By shining a spotlight on the FBIs birth... Burrough has altered our view of the early 1930s.

Chicago Tribune

It is superbreadable, thorough and critical.

The Denver Post

Fascinating... A rich and colorful cast of characters parades through the pages.... It is a wild and amazing story, and Burrough tells it with great gusto. Truth is often not only stranger than fiction but also a lot more interesting. Burroughs research is careful and extraordinarily thorough.... Public Enemies is a significant book, and a very readable one. It is easy to toss around terms like definitive, but this book deserves it. It is hard to imagine a more careful, complete and entrancing book on this subject, and on this era. Readers will not be disappointed.

The Washington Post

[An] excellent new history [of] this countrys greatest crime wave... [Burrough] brings a historians touch to the material, exploding myths on every page.... Public Enemies is knockout nonfiction entertainment as well as serious history.

The New York Sun

It is quite superb... with masses of new information.

Chicago Sun-Times

[An] engaging narrative... Burrough[s] book will make excellent reading for fans of American history and true crime.

San Francisco Chronicle

Gripping... [a] great tale.

New York Post

Bryan Burrough... has written a gripping history of just two years... when some of the more notorious criminals in American history harvested banks from Texas to Minnesota.... Mr. Burrough delineates this era with as much punchand much more insightthan any Warner Brothers gang-buster flick.

The Dallas Morning News

Gripping... Burrough expertly juggles six criminal gangs at one time, show[ing] the FBIs dramatic restructuring and captures the dark criminal days of the Depression.

The Star-Ledger (Newark)

[A] ceaselessly exciting book.

The Baltimore Sun

Bryan Burrough brings [these characters] roaring to life, like a getaway car speeding away after a bank robbery in his new book Public Enemies. Never before has the American past been given such an up-to-date polishing as Burrough gives a day-by-day account of a two-year period in which some outrageous and colorful desperadoes frightened and thrilled the public.

News-Times (Forest Grove, Oregon)

Public Enemies is a fascinating retelling of the FBIs famous War on Crime, weaving the stories of these outlaw gangs with the inner workings of the FBI, the men who were determined to stop them. Thanks to thousands of pages of recently declassified government files, it is exhaustively researched but as entertaining as any page-turning crime novel.... Must surely rank among the definitive works on the era and its crimes.

Daily Southtown (Chicago)

A 10-strike for the true crime fan.

Booklist

A rollicking, rat-a-tat ride... Iconoclastic and fascinating. A genuine treat for true-crime buffs.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

The definitive account of the 1930s crime wave that brought notorious criminals like John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde to Americas front pages.... [Burrough] successfully translates years of dogged research... into a graceful narrative.... This book compellingly brings back to life people and times distorted in popular imagination by hagiographic bureau memoirs and Hollywood.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

PENGUIN BOOKS

PUBLIC ENEMIES

Bryan Burrough is a special correspondent at Vanity Fair and the author of numerous bestselling books, including Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco (with John Helyar), Public Enemies: Americas Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34, and The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes . A former reporter for The Wall Street Journal , he is a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb Award for Excellence in Financial Journalism. He lives in Summit, New Jersey, with his wife Marla and their two sons.

AMERICAS
GREATEST
CRIME WAVE
and the
BIRTH of
the FBI ,
1933 - 34

PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,
Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell,
Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632,
New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,
Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in the United States of America by The Penguin Press,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2004
Published in Penguin Books 2005
This edition published in Penguin Books 2009

Copyright Bryan Burrough, 2004

All rights reserved

Photograph Credits
AP/Wide World Photos: Insert pages 1, 2, 3 (top and bottom right), 6 (bottom),
7 (top), 8 (bottom), 9 (top), 10, 11, 12 (top and bottom), 16 (bottom).
Mansell/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images: Insert page 3 (bottom left).
Bowersock Collection, Kansas City Museum/Union Station, Kansas City, Missouri:
Insert pages 4 (top), 14 (top).

Bettmann/Corbis: Insert pages 4 (bottom), 6 (top), 9 (bottom), 13, 15.
Texas/Dallas History and Archives Division, Dallas Public Library: Insert page 5 (top and bottom).
New York Daily News: Insert page 7 (bottom right).
Minneapolis Historical society: Insert page 8 (top).
Federal Bureau of Investigation: Insert pages 7 (bottom left), 14 (bottom), 16 (top).

eISBN : 978-1-101-03274-9

eISBN : 978-1-101-03274-9

1. CrimeUnited StatesHistory20th century. 2. CriminalsUnited StatesHistory20th century.
3. United States. Federal Bureau of InvestigationHistory. I. Title.
HV6783.B85 2004
364.97309043dc22 2004044315

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.