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 moves to fawning praise for the bravery of the outclassed individual agents. He is a bit harsh at times in pointing out clues that the original investigators missed, considering that he has the benefit of seventy years of history to know which names and places were actually significant, but his ultimate picture of the FBI is a positive one. As for the Dillinger stories themselves, I loved Burrough's novelist style in presenting, for example, the fear and confusion of a raid on Little Bohemia, but Dary Matera has a more exhaustive and personal account of the outlaw for interested readers. As far as presenting an epic portrait of the whole political and social landscape while Dillinger and his contemporaries roamed, though, this book is without equal.