Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34

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Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34

3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 · rating details · 2,042 ratings · 290 reviews

In Public Enemies, bestselling author Bryan Burrough strips away the thick layer of myths put out by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI to tell the full story—for the first time—of the most spectacular crime wave in American history, the two-year battle between the young Hoover and the assortment of criminals who became national icons: John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyd...more

Paperback, 624 pages

Published June 28th 2005 by Penguin Books (first published January 1st 2004)

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Aug 28, 2011 K.D. Oliveros rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, history

Most Filipinos still look up to America as their savior. This was rooted on the fact that the US was the one that liberated the Philippines from the Japanese during World War II. The US granted the Philippines its post-war independence on July 4, 1946 in the Treaty of Manila. However, the military bases treaty was rejected by the Philippine Senate in September 1991 and so the dreams of many young men to have a chance to join the US navy just ceased. My brother was one of those who were fortunate...more

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Jun 11, 2011 Kemper rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime-mystery, non-fiction, thieves, history

The Kansas City Massacre occurred over 75 years ago, but you can still go to the renovated Union Station and see chips in the front of the building that were supposedly made by some of the bullets flying around that day. If you buy into the premise of Public Enemies, this is where the modern FBI was born. I like to imagine that years later, J. Edgar Hoover slipped into town late one night, put on one his best evening gowns and burnt some old illegal wire tap tapes on this spot as an offering to...more The Kansas City Massacre occurred over 75 years ago, but you can still go to the renovated Union Station and see chips in the front of the building that were supposedly made by some of the bullets flying around that day. If you buy into the premise of Public Enemies, this is where the modern FBI was born. I like to imagine that years later, J. Edgar Hoover slipped into town late one night, put on one his best evening gowns and burnt some old illegal wire tap tapes on this spot as an offering to the fates that turned him from a fussy minor bureaucrat into one of the of the most powerful men in America.

In June of 1933, an escaped convict named Frank Nash had been captured in Hot Springs, Arkansas, by a couple of agents of the then mostly unknown Bureau of Investigation. They brought him by train to K.C.’s Union Station, where they met members of the local police who were going to help drive him back to Leavenworth. As they got into the cars, they were attacked by armed men trying to free Nash. After a brief but intense gunfight, two feds and two of the KCPD men were dead, several others were wounded, and Nash was also killed in the carnage. All of the attackers managed to escape.

The event occurred as a new wave of armed robbers had been rampaging across the Midwest. John Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde, Babyface Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, Machine Gun Kelley and the Barker gang were making headlines with high profile kidnappings or by pulling a robbery in one area, then using fast cars and new automatic weapons to outrace and outgun the local law enforcement. Once in another county or state, they were very unlikely to ever be captured.

With Roosevelt’s administration rolling out his New Deal and looking for ways to boost federal power, Attorney General Homer Cummings declared a war on crime and pushed for a federal police force. (Ironically, it was a liberal public policy that gave power to Hoover, who would then spend most of his career investigating and persecuting harmless leftist groups while ignoring the growth of the Mafia.) The K.C. Massacre gave Hoover’s small Bureau of Investigation their chance to be that national police force when the KC cops, in an effort to pin all the blame for the massacre on the feds, gave them total responsibility for solving the case despite the fact that murdering a federal agent wasn’t even a federal crime then so they technically had no jurisdiction.

Hoover’s clean cut college boys were initially no match for the criminals. FBI agents weren’t officially allowed to carry weapons until after the massacre and most of its employees were college graduates looking for a job during the Great Depression and hadn’t signed up to be gun men. They made a lot of mistakes and missed a lot of arrest opportunities while a whole lotta money got stolen and many people were killed as the feds worked through their growing pains.

After all the prominent criminals had been captured or killed (many without Bureau involvement), it was the movie industry that embraced the ‘G-Men’ and turned them and Hoover into American heroes. Burroughs has obviously done a lot or research, and I think this book has to be one of the most accurate and thorough accounts of the Depression-era crime wave that swept the country. It’s filled with amazing stories and anecdotes and does a lot to try and break up the myths of the era. For example, Ma Barker was not the leader of the Barker gang. She was a cranky old lady who happened to get shot and killed while the FBI tried to bring in one of her boys. Hoover declared her the brains of the operation to deflect criticism about why an unarmed old woman got killed by his agents.

The only flaw in the book isn’t Burroughs’ fault. It’s just that history got repetitive. The criminals rob banks. The inept FBI can’t catch them. The criminals rob more banks. FBI still can’t catch them. Rinse and repeat. So while I got a little bored with some sections, it was only because Burroughs did such a great job of documenting all the history of it. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the true-crime of this era.

*I’m going to digress a moment about the movie version of this book. I enjoyed the movie and thought Johnny Depp did a great job as Dillinger. However, I find it kind of sad that a book that prides itself on historical accuracy and debunking many of the myths that the movies gave us about these people was itself turned into a movie that was wildly inaccurate and tries to create a whole new set of legends. It’s extra funny when you read about how incompetent Melvin Purvis actually was and how he was turned into a hero by the media after Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd were killed. This infuriated Hoover, and led him to trash Purvis’s career. In the film, Christian Bale plays Purvis as the straight arrow hero who personally kills Pretty Boy Floyd and Babyface Nelson. Hoover has to be spinning in his grave.
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Aug 04, 2011 Ting rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Saw the movie and just had to read the book to get a better idea of the real history. It was fascinating! The author does not sympathize or glamorize the gangsters but nor does he glorify the FBI, he writes with an objective voice. The various public enemies had different personalities and motives for doing what they did. Bonnie and Clyde were a couple of bored kids with no real brains who thought nothing of shooting up innocent people and hauling in insignificant amounts of money for the thrill...more

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Aug 04, 2011 Kevin rated it 4 of 5 stars

An in-depth look at a two-year period when Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, Ma Barker's Gang, and Machine Gun Kelly were all active. This book tells the parallel stories of this group of criminals and the FBI.

At this time, the fledgling FBI was essentially a group of lawyers, modeled after Scotland Yard, and had to work hard to catch up to the guns and cars these bank robbers were using. Predictably, J. Edgar Hoover comes off as a publicity-hungry fool who us...more

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Aug 03, 2009 Hood added it · review of another edition

HARD PRINT http://www.theleadmiamibeach.com/2009...

Public Enemies

The Film Opens This Weekend, But Have You Read the Book?

By John Hood

It’s unlikely that even the most holed-up prison escapee hasn’t heard that Michael Mann’s rip-roaring Public Enemies opened all over the country this week. I mean, this flick has more hype behind it than any ten Britney Spears records combined. It’s undoubtedly a whole lot better for you too. And if you can’t cotton to the idea of Johnny Depp playing John Dillinger...more

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Aug 28, 2012 Arwen56 rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: saggistica

Questo libro mi è stato regalato. Fosse stato per me, difficilmente avrei deciso di acquistarlo, perché le bande criminali americane, a qualsiasi epoca appartengano, non mi interessano granché, sinceramente.

Non è un romanzo, benché così venga definito in sovraccoperta, bensì un saggio. Nell’introduzione, l’autore dice che si è molto divertito a scriverlo e che sia augura che anche il lettore, identicamente, si diverta a leggerlo.
Chiarisce poi che il suo intento è stato quello di ricondurre cer...more Questo libro mi è stato regalato. Fosse stato per me, difficilmente avrei deciso di acquistarlo, perché le bande criminali americane, a qualsiasi epoca appartengano, non mi interessano granché, sinceramente.

Non è un romanzo, benché così venga definito in sovraccoperta, bensì un saggio. Nell’introduzione, l’autore dice che si è molto divertito a scriverlo e che sia augura che anche il lettore, identicamente, si diverta a leggerlo.
Chiarisce poi che il suo intento è stato quello di ricondurre certi personaggi, celebrati e snaturati dal cinema hollywoodiano, alle loro reali dimensioni, attenendosi rigorosamente solo ai fatti certi e documentabili e riferendosi ad un periodo storico preciso, ovvero gli anni che vanno dal 1933 al 1936, cosa che non era mai stata fatta in precedenza, poiché la complessità del contesto aveva sempre spinto i biografi a concentrarsi solo sui crimini e sugli spostamenti dei singoli e più famosi gangster.

Bene, onestamente, non ho né il tempo, né la voglia per verificare la veridicità di quest’ultima affermazione, per cui, sino a evidente prova contraria, mi fido sulla parola. Per quanto riguarda invece il primo punto, non mi sento proprio di parlare di divertimento in relazione alla sua lettura, soprattutto per il lessico miserello e lo stile alquanto piatto, che si riduce spesso ad una mera sfilza di date, nomi e luoghi. Annoia un po’, a dirlo con franchezza. Restare fedeli ai fatti non significa necessariamente privare di “personalità” un scritto. L’unica risata me la sono fatta leggendo la quarta di copertina dove qualcuno ha avuto il coraggio di scrivere che ha il “ritmo di un action thriller”. Seeeeeeeee … allora io sono Marilyn Monroe.

[OT MODE ON] Se sto cavolo di PC non la pianta di ricordarmi ogni tre per due che ci sono degli aggiornamenti disponibili per i programmi Adobe installati, giuro che gli do fuoco. Decido da sola se e quando installare qualcosa, aggiornamenti compresi. Hai capito, testina??? [OT MODE OFF]

Ad ogni modo, le vite dei “miti” del crimine americano ci scorrono sotto gli occhi in parallelo: Bonny e Clyde, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, “Baby Face” Nelson, i Barker e Jo Dillinger. Ma ridimensionati e privi dell’alone di leggenda, sia pur negativa, cui siamo soliti associarli. Temo ce li si debba immaginare tutti, se Burrough ci racconta la verità, parecchio sporchi (in senso letterale e chiaramente percepibile tramite l’olfatto), molto insoddisfatti (anelerebbero, in verità, a un’esistenza piccolo-borghese), non del tutto a posto col cervello (ma di questo se ne aveva già avuto il sospetto anche prima del saggio di Burrough), con qualche ragione e moltissimi torti (se tutti quelli che subiscono dei dissesti finanziari si mettessero a sparare a destra e a manca, ormai saremmo tutti morti). In buona sostanza, cogliocelli qualsiasi che l’immaginario collettivo ha trasformato praticamente in “eroi al contrario”.

Certo che ‘sto “immaginario collettivo” ne combina di cazzate, eh?

:-)

PS: Non vorrei avervi dato l’idea che sia un libro disprezzabile, perché non è così. Soprattutto per coloro che siano interessati alla materia, offre una grande abbondanza di particolari, alcuni del tutto inediti, anche in relazione alla nascita di un altro grande mito: l’FBI. Se solo fosse stato scritto meglio, forse l’avrei apprezzato di più. E’ che, invecchiando, divento sempre più intollerante verso la sciatteria linguistica.
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Aug 11, 2012 G.d. Brennan rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's a tired cliché to say the book's better than the movie, but here it's far truer than usual.

Michael Mann's "Public Enemies" was one of our best director's worst movies. On paper, it looked like a great combination; he likes cops and criminals, and his criminals tend to be too cool for neckties, as was Dillinger. But the movie unexpectedly fell victim to his strange obsession with shooting things on digital video. Perhaps his intent was to give it a gritty you-are-there feel, but while that w...more It's a tired cliché to say the book's better than the movie, but here it's far truer than usual.

Michael Mann's "Public Enemies" was one of our best director's worst movies. On paper, it looked like a great combination; he likes cops and criminals, and his criminals tend to be too cool for neckties, as was Dillinger. But the movie unexpectedly fell victim to his strange obsession with shooting things on digital video. Perhaps his intent was to give it a gritty you-are-there feel, but while that works with some film techniques and some historical eras, this combination simply failed, and it ended up looking like a cheesy History Channel documentary. (The all-important illusion, whereby a great movie can make you forget you're watching a movie, failed; a little part of my brain kept saying, "Hey, they didn't have digital video in the 30s!" I never for a moment felt like I was watching John Dillinger, but remained conscious instead of the fact that I was watching Michael Mann shooting Johnny Depp playing Dillinger. The only things I liked were that a close personal friend had a prominent role as an extra, and that they shot on location in Chicago and dressed up the place where Dillinger was shot in 1930s facades, so I had the chance to go there and set my camera on sepia and take pictures of myself with the Biograph Theater in the background and tell people I'd been on a time-travel vacation. I digress.)

ANYWAY, yet another failing of the movie--and to be fair to Mr. Mann, one that may have been unavoidable unless he'd stretched this into a miniseries--was that it only paid attention to the relatively well-known story of Dillinger's life and death, ignoring the other gripping stories that were simultaneously captivating a Depression-weary nation and turning a once-insignificant branch of the Justice Department into a powerful national police force. For Brian Burrough's book gives us not just Dillinger, but four other narratives--Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Barkers.

Only the first of those is well-remembered these days, and that only as a Hollywood-ized glamorization of a couple whose story, not very well known before the Warren Beatty film, provided a nearly blank canvas for some ambitious screenwriters to paint an early-30s story in late-60s colors. But all five of these threads tied together over the course of a remarkable two-year period in the 1930s, collectively leading to the federalization of American law enforcement. Indeed, Dillinger et. al. did for this sphere of life what the Federal Reserve did for banking--take an area of public policy out of the hands of possibly crooked local authorities and place it in the hands of possibly incompetent national ones. Arguably this was as necessary in this sphere as it was in the other; certainly motorized travel had revolutionized the ability of criminals to commit a crime in one jurisdiction and flee to another--or across the country, for that matter--before anyone knew what had happened. Still, with J. Edgar Hoover placing a premium on smarts, neatness, and obedience and neglecting, you know, actual law enforcement skills, the agents under his purview missed many opportunities and made many catastrophic mistakes before these criminals were brought to bay. (A prime culprit is Melvin Purvis, the G-Man who, as legend has it, successfully led the Dillinger pursuit--and who in reality missed many prime opportunities to capture Dillinger before being quietly relieved of his leadership position prior to Dillinger's demise.)

Burrough spends just enough time looking at the big picture to render some perspective; he places far more of an emphasis on the nitty gritty, the detailed minutiae of the cases in question. This gives the book heft, and like any heavy object, there's a certain amount of inertia to it; the beginning chapters are so full of introductions and lead-ins to a variety of complicated cases and personalities that it makes for slow reading. (Also, he's too honest a writer and reporter to pretend he knows the truth in those cases where there's conflicting credible evidence.) But his honesty, diligence and hard work in turn sets up some great set pieces once the book gets moving; the chapter on the bloody and disastrous raid on Dillinger's temporary hideout at the Little Bohemia cabins in Northern Wisconsin makes for an incredibly taut read, and the chapter which wraps up the stories of Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson is one of the most gripping pieces of nonfiction I've ever read; indeed, I plowed through the last 150 pages of the book in a single day.

As gripping as this book is in the end, though, perhaps its most important virtue is the slower parts, for these make it a definitive narrative of J. Edgar Hoover's War on Crime. Unlike the public enemies in question--and the lawmen who used their stories to gain power and prestige, and the mythmakers who sold redacted versions of those stories to the public--"Public Enemies" doesn't hold us hostage and feed us a limited set of facts. Burrough puts everything out there, the romantic and the sordid, the heroic and the ugly. His intent, it seems, isn't to undermine this breathless and compelling narrative, but to flesh it out properly, to tell it without sacrificing its factual integrity--in short, to get as close as possible to the unknowable truth. The truth shall set you free, it is said--and fortunately it makes for a great book, too. (less)

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Jul 05, 2012 Ryan Holiday rated it 5 of 5 stars

Although the movie was a disappointment, this is a wonderful book. Burrough is just a spectacular writer and the narrative is well-known enough that I don't need to try to sell anyone on it. What I will say is that Public Enemies has perhaps the best introduction in it that I've read at this point in my life. First in the author's note, Burrough presents exactly why he decided to write the book and why it was so compelling. That he suddenly discovered one day that Pretty Boy Floyd, Alvin Karpis,...more

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Oct 17, 2011 Christopher rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

This is a gripping and fascinating look at the lives of the last romantic desperadoes of American history and cultural mythology. Bryan Burrough does a fine job of bringing much of the era of outlaws and G-Men alive with keen research and a good narrative focus. In fact, Burrough strikes a perfect balance between scrupulous scholarship and fast-paced storytelling, leaving both history buffs and true crime readers something to enjoy. The best part about this book to me though is that Burrough is...more

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Aug 05, 2011 Checkman rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, police-procedural, true-crime, crime

A well researched account of the crime wave that swept across the Midwestern United States in the early years of the Great Depression. In my opinion interesting for it's look at the last gasp of the colorful, daring, individualistic, outlaw criminal class.

By the early 1930's the world was changing. For or better or worse the United States Federal government was becoming more centralized and beginning to control greater resources - quickly surpassing what state and local governments could call o...more A well researched account of the crime wave that swept across the Midwestern United States in the early years of the Great Depression. In my opinion interesting for it's look at the last gasp of the colorful, daring, individualistic, outlaw criminal class.

By the early 1930's the world was changing. For or better or worse the United States Federal government was becoming more centralized and beginning to control greater resources - quickly surpassing what state and local governments could call on. The population was becoming more regulated (income tax, social security, driver licenses), connected (telephones, automobiles, telegraphs, radio) and urban.

The 19th century was fading away and the fast moving motor bandits ,like Dillinger, were actually artifacts from the previous century. They had a brief, but glorious comeback in the late Twenties and early Thirties for a number of reasons. Technology (automobiles & automatic weapons) gave them the ability to move rapidly and overwhelm the poorly equipped/trained/paid police officers of that time. The laws restricted the ability of the various state and local police agencies to pursue across different jurisdictional boundaries and ,with the onset of the Depression, they found many sympathizers within the population who would aid them. Oh and organized crime also allowed them access to it's considerable resources.

More than a blow by blow account of the F.B.I.'s pursuit of the motor bandits Bryan Burrough provides a look at a transitional time in America's past. Now it's true that change is always happening, but there are moments in history when the changes are almost quantum leaps and the Great Depression was one of those moments.

In the early thirties Americans were becoming used to being part of a bigger, centrally organized society. It had been happening since the Civil War, but it accelerated with World War One and then the New Deal under F.D.R. made it essential. It was vital that Americans felt like they could look to the Federal government for many different things. The maintenance of law and order was one of the biggies. The bandits were too popular with many in the population. They were making a laughing stock of the police and undermining the authority of the government. The New Deal required people to believe in the competence of the government and it's employees. Hoover wanted it and it was handed to him and his F.B.I.

Burrough provides a blow by blow account and at times it gets rather dry. But I like the fact that he also shows a pivotal time in the United States and writes about the changes.He did not set out to provide a pulp-fiction account. He didn't write and episode for Gangbusters. As a police officer I could see the beginning of modern law enforcement as I read the book. It's a shaky start and at times the F.B.I.'s actions are bungling and frustrating. It was a very steep learning curve and the agents were starting with no foundation under their feet. But through luck (some of it dumb), hard work, the growing realization that they had greater resources and figuring out how to employ those resources and the bandits eventually making too many mistakes the Bureau and different police agencies got most of the bandits.

Burrough shows what law enforcement is about. Much of it is tedious, boring and requires a slavish attention to detail. Occasionally it is broken up by moments of violence and terror and humor. It's a well written account. It isn't sensationalized, it isn't a character assassination of J. Edgar Hoover and it isn't a fluff piece. It's solid, well-researched and intelligently written. (less)

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Aug 04, 2010 Sarah Capps rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, gangsters

Normally I'm not a big non-fiction reader but when I picked up a copy of Public Enemies, saw Johnny Depp on the cover, and read the short reviews on the back I knew I had to give it a try. And I'm so very glad I did.

It took me quite awhile to slog through all 624 pages -- there were so many facts to remember and no fiction-perfect story plot to help me along -- but that doesn't mean I loved the book any less. Burrough did a heck of a job compiling facts from files and interviews and weaving tog

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Jul 07, 2010 Marsha rated it 4 of 5 stars

I learned so much from this book! I had no idea that Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly, John Dillinger, and Bonnie and Clyde all had their moments of fame in the same two year period of 1933-1934, not to mention a bunch of other kidnappers and bank robbers. Burroughs does a great job of documenting and narrating everything that happened concerning these criminals and how they helped to shape the formation of the FBI. At the beginning of the "War on Crime", the FBI was just an investigatory org...more

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May 12, 2010 Ice rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

Burrough, an award-winning financial journalist and Vanity Fair special correspondent, best known for Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, switches gears to produce the definitive account of the 1930s crime wave that brought notorious criminals like John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde to America's front pages. Burrough's fascination with his subject matter stems from a family connection—his paternal grandfather manned a roadblock in Arkansas during the hunt for Bonnie and Clyde—and h...more Burrough, an award-winning financial journalist and Vanity Fair special correspondent, best known for Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, switches gears to produce the definitive account of the 1930s crime wave that brought notorious criminals like John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde to America's front pages. Burrough's fascination with his subject matter stems from a family connection—his paternal grandfather manned a roadblock in Arkansas during the hunt for Bonnie and Clyde—and he successfully translates years of dogged research, which included thorough review of recently disclosed FBI files, into a graceful narrative. This true crime history appropriately balances violent shootouts and schemes for daring prison breaks with a detailed account of how the slew of robberies and headlines helped an ambitious federal bureaucrat named J. Edgar Hoover transform a small agency into the FBI we know today. While some of the details (e.g., that Dillinger got a traffic ticket) are trivial, this book compellingly brings back to life people and times distorted in the popular imagination by hagiographic bureau memoirs and Hollywood. Burrough's recent New York Times op-ed piece drawing parallels between the bureau's "reinvention" in the 1930s and today's reform efforts to combat the war on terror will help attract readers looking for lessons from history.

This fascinating book tells, in detail, the events of the War on Crime waged in the years 1933 and '34. A rich and colorful cast of characters parades through the pages. On the bad guy side, we find Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd and Alvin Karpis and the Barker family. On the side of law and order, there was J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI along with local police and other officials. The battle unfolded amid an amazing epidemic of bank robberies, part of what some people saw as a great crime wave. More than anything else, it was probably the Kansas City Massacre -- a bloody incident in June 1933, which left a pile of dead detectives and law enforcement officers -- that touched off the war. This massacre shocked the country -- and the FBI -- into action.

Crime had gone interstate, which was a new problem for the forces of law and order. The automobile gave mobility and speed to gangs of bank robbers; the machine gun gave them firepower. During the Great Depression, poverty and social disorganization were eating away at the country's social fabric. Corruption corroded the heart of local law enforcement. The FBI, a relatively new organization, was weak, untrained and uncertain. Its men were, in many ways, staggeringly incompetent. But the FBI, over the course of two tumultuous years, gradually learned how to become a sleeker, more efficient instrument. Despite its bumbling and a host of false starts, by the end of the period the FBI had won the war and the "public enemies" had lost. Bonnie and Clyde died in a hail of bullets. Dillinger was cut down outside the Biograph theater in Chicago. Kelly and Nelson were also dead. So were the Barkers. Alvin Karpis was on his way to Alcatraz.

But the good guys endured a comedy of errors before all that happened. Burrough's account is peppered with tales of missed opportunities, bad detective work, poor record-keeping and all-around sloppiness. Desperate to catch John Dillinger, in March 1934 the FBI "stormed the Chicago apartment of a woman named Anne Baker," who was supposed to have harbored Dillinger following his escape from an Indiana jail earlier that month. The raid was a "debacle." In fact, the FBI had "raided the wrong address." Even worse was the raid on "Little Bohemia," where Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson were supposed to be holed up. That raid was a fiasco. All of the criminals escaped, and the FBI ended up shooting a completely innocent man.

The public enemies were hardly geniuses, either. They, too, had their share of ludicrous errors. For example, the Karpis-Barker gang seized a hand truck, "stacked with bulging sacks" and heavily guarded, outside the Federal Reserve Building in Chicago. The gang got away -- only to discover they had stolen not money but bags of mail. In contrast, knocking off a bank appeared to be child's play. The "public enemies" raced about the country, stealing wads of cash from banks, renting apartments, buying cars, picking up women and having a good time between jobs. They were protected by a network of supporters and hangers-on (and sometimes corrupt officials). Their insatiable greed -- and their inability to stop robbing and killing -- led to their destruction,

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. Burrough's research is careful and extraordinarily thorough. He debunks many of the tall tales that have accrued around these almost mythical figures. The famous woman in a red dress who betrayed John Dillinger was actually wearing an orange skirt. Machine Gun Kelly was "inept" and "never a menacing figure." Bonnie and Clyde were totally unlike the characters in the famous movie; they were "lazy drifters who murdered nearly a dozen innocent men." Most striking, perhaps, was the case of Ma Barker, grandmother and head of a family of violent crooks. That was the image. In reality, Ma Barker was a rather stupid old woman who liked to work jigsaw puzzles and had never been mastermind of anything, including crime. When she ended up with a bullet through her head, the FBI had some explaining to do. Hoover then concocted the tale of Ma Barker the master criminal, the "brains" of the gang, an evil genius who died with a machine gun in her hands, "spidery, crafty Ma Barker," whose "withered fingers" controlled the fate of her family of "desperadoes." Not a word of this was true.

In a narrow sense, the War on Crime was a great success. Hoover got what he wanted; the public enemies were put out of business. And in the process he created the modern FBI. He also advocated a bigger role for the federal government in the battle against criminal elements and established a strong federal agency to carry on that war.

Still, Hoover's legacy was a dubious one. His agency improved its skill while gaining a great deal of power that it often abused. Those abuses took various forms, such as "vigorous physical interviews" that we might call gross brutality. As the power of the FBI and its director became "absolute," the agency, according to Burrough, was itself "corrupted absolutely." The Bureau still "wrestles with" its mixed record to this day. As for the public enemies, they were really only bit-players in the drama of high crime. As Burrough points out, law enforcement launched no "broader drives on the Chicago Syndicate or Italian Mafias, no war on counterfeiting or other crimes." Nor was there any attack on the rot and corruption of the cities, on the crooked sheriffs and police lieutenants and the vast interconnections between the agencies of organized crime. Dillinger, the Barkers and the others were, in fact, disorganized crime. They robbed and they killed, but they did not, in the main, threaten the fabric of society, the texture of local and state government or the integrity of law enforcement.

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.(less)

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Mar 09, 2010 Brian rated it 4 of 5 stars

"Whoring, boozing, and lounging around the lake while bass fishing were pleasant enough endeavors, but none of these were reasons why Al Karpis decided on a life of crime."

As is the case with most books that become movies, the book "Public Enemies" goes into far more detail and provides more context on the turbulent years of 1933-34, a period that spawned the FBI and launched J Edgar Hoover's War on the Crime.

The film starring Johnny Depp focuses primarily on John Dillinger whereas the book chro...more

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Jan 18, 2010 Nora rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a "wow" book. So much that I never understood about early 20th century America becomes clear in its pages: how much communication has changed our lives, the importance of interstate travel, and most of all the amazing tolerance for lawlessness in the history of the US that persisted much longer than I had ever suspected. This book portrays the lives of the famous gangsters of the 1930s: Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, etc., and the early FBI as it learned to hunt them...more

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Oct 04, 2009 Jack rated it 4 of 5 stars

An interesting beach read for historians who want the guilty pleasure of just reading a bunch of factual reconstructions performed through meticulous archival research, with only enough of a thesis to keep the book interesting and relevant: the outlaws were a type of criminal distinct to their time, and the modern FBI was born out of the battle against them. Burrough's strength lies in his meticulous reconstruction of events, but he adds just the right touch of context/significance - with a big...more An interesting beach read for historians who want the guilty pleasure of just reading a bunch of factual reconstructions performed through meticulous archival research, with only enough of a thesis to keep the book interesting and relevant: the outlaws were a type of criminal distinct to their time, and the modern FBI was born out of the battle against them. Burrough's strength lies in his meticulous reconstruction of events, but he adds just the right touch of context/significance - with a big emphasis on the reality of these legendary figures - to keep the stories feeling relevant. It's staggering to think that this is true, and not just in the exploits of the strange community of criminals (who really did apparently known each other, for the most part) and really did perform the acts now surrounded by 70 years of pop cultural trope. Perhaps even more mind boggling is the stunning, almost indescribable, incompetence of the early FBI.

Burrough's writing style is quite good, especially considering the amazing scope of the research. Occasionally, he has little lapses; I occasionally couldn't follow his use of the pronoun "he," which I'd expect to be clear in a high school level paper, and sometimes it felt like he was repeating himself, introducing the same bit character twice in the space of 5 pages, but there are enough people in the book that perhaps erring on the side of caution is better than making the inverse mistake.

That said, Burrough does just go too far sometimes, providing details in a way that almost seem to be showing off. Footnote extras like the brief biopics of individual agents who get only glancing mentions in the text feel extraneous, as do the other little details, but they are in footnotes. The book also feels like it drags a bit, but I, at least, find that inevitable in this kind of painstaking chronicle; reality moves with an irritating deliberation sometimes.

Call it three and half stars; not a book that will leave you in awe, but an extraordinarily capable handling of a volume of material and detail that rarely lends itself to such accessible rendering to the reader. (less)

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Aug 03, 2009 Steven Peterson rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a fascinating book. I learned more than I thought possible about early outlaws, such as John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, and the Barker Gang. I also learned how the FBI's pursuit of these gangs--beginning with one disastrous error after another--helped "make" the agency what it is today.

Some interesting contextual factors. Many of the "outlaws" examined were of relatively little moment compared with the gangs, the Mafia, and so on. Bonnie and Clyde,...more This is a fascinating book. I learned more than I thought possible about early outlaws, such as John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, and the Barker Gang. I also learned how the FBI's pursuit of these gangs--beginning with one disastrous error after another--helped "make" the agency what it is today.

Some interesting contextual factors. Many of the "outlaws" examined were of relatively little moment compared with the gangs, the Mafia, and so on. Bonnie and Clyde, for instance, were scarcely known by the public at large.

The FBI, before the events of 1933-1936, was a kind of backwater agency, without a clearly defined mission. There was even talk, with Franklin Roosevelt's election, that the agency's head, J. Edgar Hoover, would be removed. After an effort to bring a criminal to justice, the "Kansas City Massacre" occurred, in which the FBI's effort failed, Hoover began to consider a more active role in criminal investigation and action, focusing on well know gangs and criminals (with much focus on the gangs mentioned earlier).

The book itself is almost like a slow dance, going back and forth (in largely chronological sequence) between the different gangs and the FBI. We see the robberies and murders carried out by the gangs (varying from the psychopathic Machine Gun Kelly to the more "urbane" [if one can use such a term:] John Dillinger). We see the relationships among gang members (sometimes moving from one gang to another), the development and ending of relationships with women, and the mythology (Ma Barker was not anything like a criminal mastermind, and Bonnie and Clyde were looked at as minor leaguers).

The FBI part of the story began with them as clueless about how to operate in the field (they were weak in understanding the use of guns before the campaign against the gangs began); they were inept on the simplest elements of sleuthing (including observation of suspects, how to surround "bad guys" so that they could not escape, an appalling lack of follow up on some terrific leads). Early on? "Amateur hour."

But the FBI learned and began to reel the gangs and their members in. . . .

A fascinating book. If you are interested in the era, the gangs, and the role of the FBI, this will be a fine read.
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Apr 21, 2009 Jason rated it 3 of 5 stars

Now that the movie is coming out, I expect a few people may actually read this and I can discuss with someone. It's a well-researched, if sometimes slightly dry account of the great gangster crime wave that happened in America in the early 1930's which ultimately led to a great deal of violence, bloodshed, and the birth of the FBI. The movie will focus on John Dillinger, but the book is a chronological account that follows the exploits of Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Fac...more

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Apr 11, 2009 Erin rated it 5 of 5 stars

So with summer rapidly approaching I was on IMDB the other day getting my "wish list" together...movies I'll hopefully get a chance to see in the theater. On the list was "Public Enemies", the John Dillinger (Depression-era bank robber) biopic w/ Johnny Depp & Christian Bale. IMDB said this was the book they used as a jumping-off point (because we all know what "based on a true story" really means) so I thought I'd pick it up.

That was a very long-winded lead in to say this book is AMAZING! B...more

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Mar 19, 2013 Sonja rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: reference-books

I recommend this book. A review from my 2nd read:

It is an enjoyable read any adult or young adult. In particular it is of interest to readers of suspense, true crime, American History, the Great Depression/Dust Bowl, and the forming of the FBI. The writing is very good. The reader feels immersed in the worlds of John Nash, Machine Gun Kelly, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, and the Barker Gang.
The research is airtight. The author retells significant events (the Kansas City Massacre, the Hunt f...more

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Jul 23, 2011 Kurt rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the most entertaining history books I have ever read. Burrough does a terrific job blending the narratives for five or six criminal organizations that bounced around the United States during the Depression. He expertly summarizes tens of thousands of pages of FBI files and makes the professionalization of the FBI the common thread that drives the separate stories. It is entertaining to see the way Burrough's tone alternates between exasperated disdain for Hoover and his political...more

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Dec 26, 2009 Mark Cooper rated it 3 of 5 stars

[Audio, abridged:] Interesting summary of the early 1930's era in which the FBI came into its own as it battled Dillenger, Pretty-boy Floyd, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie & Clyde, the Barker Gang and more. Aside from the engaging and detailed look into the lives of these folks and the officers that hunted them, the book pictures the "Federalization" of law enforcement. The '30's saw the rise of the national government as provider and protector. Given the local nature of law enforcement at the ti...more

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Aug 24, 2009 F.R. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Bryan Burrough’s book about the depression era outlaws of the US was far more interesting to me than the film it spawned (although it’s amusing that the book criticises previous films which built fantasy on the fact, and the film went and did exactly that). The narrative follows all the name crooks of the 1933/34 wave: Dillinger, Baby-Face Nelson, Pretty-Boy Floyd, Machine-Gun Kelly, The Barker-Karpis Gang and Bonnie & Clyde. It works hard to create the world they operated in and the circums...more

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Jan 25, 2013 Fernando rated it 2 of 5 stars

No digo que sea un mal libro, pero me dejó bastante frío. Me produjo un efecto parecido a Gomorrah, el libro de Roberto Saviano, se me hizo repetitivo. A la decima descripción de un asalto a un banco, seguida por la catorceava persecución, y rematada por el vigésimo error de los miembros del FBI me empecé a desesperar y todavía no había llegado ni al ecuador del libro. Creo que parte del problema es que hay demasiados personajes. Bonny y Clyde, Pretty Boy Floid, Machine Gun Kelly, la familia Bar...more

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Oct 25, 2011 Darrell Reimer rated it 2 of 5 stars

I picked up the book because I was curious to see how closely the Michael Mann/Johnny Depp flick adhered to the public account.

Short answer to that question: not very closely, which in some ways is just as well, since the movie (not one of Mann's or Depp's better entries) is vastly more entertaining than this book. Burrough assembles a heap of resource material to piece together a very thorough account of who fired how many bullets to injure/kill whom, in order to obtain X-amount of dollars in a...more

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Jul 11, 2009 Raymond rated it 5 of 5 stars

"Public Enemies" stirs awe. There is no major character in the book which most people have not read of many times. Yet never before have all these characters, together with their families and girl friends, plus the lawmen who pursued them, been brought together with stories of their lives and crimes, their origins and their travels. It is to Burrough's great credit that he was not daunted. A criminal society equipped with sub-machine guns and swift autos had come to exist which indeed justified...more

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May 08, 2009 Rae Kasey rated it 5 of 5 stars

A film adaptation of this book is coming out this summer, so I thought I'd try to get through it before the movie hit theaters. I thought it might take me a while, since I typically don't find myself enraptured by nonficiton.

Wrong.

I tore through this book in three days, completely captivated by the stories of America's first major-league criminals. John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie and Clyde, and the Barkers are all covered, and I learned quite a bit about not only thei...more

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Jul 11, 2011 Josh rated it 5 of 5 stars

Interesting to learn that the source information the authour used for this book had only recently been de-classified. Even though you have been hearing stories and seeing movies about John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd, this is the real story.

It is funny to see the Feds and the Gangsters making major goof-ups. The big shoot outs are great reads.

The book is WAY better than the movie. It is ironic that the book makes a big point about how Melvin Purvis was just the public face....more

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Oct 01, 2009 Elena rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

Magnífico estudio de la llamada 'Gran Guerra' contra el crimen. Trata sobre todo de la oleada de robos a bancos y secuestros de 1933-1934, y el autor sigue a las principales bandas del momento. Aunque relata todos los avatares de las cuatro o cinco bandas más importantes, el mayor número de detalles los dedica a John Dillinger, el prototipo de fuera de la ley de la época. Y a pesar de que se queja de la cierta 'glamurización' que ya en su época tuvo y que siguió en libros y películas posteriores...more

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Dec 14, 2009 Robert Magness rated it 4 of 5 stars

Spectacular account of the most famous Depression era criminals and how they moulded the FBI. It was a frustrating read as well. To see the FBI in such an infant state runs counter to how I've always seen them since I've been aware of their organization. Their early mistakes and arrogance gets frustrating and laughable. It's so near a comedy of errors on the level of Keystone Kops that I feel sorry for these green agents just exiting law school, given a gun and put directly into the line of fire...more

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About Bryan Burrough

Bryan Burrough joined Vanity Fair in August 1992 and has been a special correspondent for the magazine since January 1995. He has reported on a wide range of topics, including the events that led to the war in Iraq, the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, and the Anthony Pellicano case. His profile subjects have included Sumner Redstone, Larry Ellison, Mike Ovitz, and Ivan Boesky.

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“To the generations of Americans raised since World War 2, the identities of criminals such as Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, "Ma" Barker, John Dillenger, and Clyde Barrow are no more real than are Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones. After decades spent in the washing machine of popular culture, their stories have been bled of all reality, to an extent that few Americans today know who these people actually were, much less that they all rose to national prominence at the same time. They were real.” — 5 people liked it

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