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

i was not impressed

difficult for me to read because the author kept bouncing from one "public enemy" to another just to keep the presentation in "date order"...i think that the information would have been much better presented without trying to maintain a time-line of events...he did a lot of research.and included copious footnotes and a comprehensive bibliography, but he lacks the ability to put this research into a good "story"...there are no heros in this book...the criminals are evil and the g-men inept and bumbling...there are better books on this subject

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

great read

this book is a very good book, it is very informational. when i read it i wanna keep reading it more and more. this book has alot of good action and lots of killing and shoot outs. i would recamend this book to any teenager and adults that likes history in the 1930's

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Good Read

Good read for a history buff. Very well researched and very accurate. Some historical aspects were honestly presented as speculative.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Great read

This book has a little bit of everything - history, gangsters, and growth of the FBI. The author clearly loved his subject and it was a pleasure to read the book. I would have liked a little more on the gangsters and a little less on J. Edgar Hoover, but overall, it was a good investment of time.

A Wild Ride

Burrough returns the reader to an era when hard men on both sides of the law neither gave nor asked quarter. Some of the scenes would easily fit into one of Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op stories. You can feel the fear and adrenaline surge as criminals plan and execute a heist, agents and police surround an out of the way house and wait for their well-armed quarry to show, or a wounded man draws his last few breaths before dying.I sometimes wondered about the authenticity of all the dialogue Burrough quotes, although he claims it comes from FBI files. Other than that small caveat, this is a gripping read that fairly presents both sides of the story and shows how J. Edgar hoover used the Depression crime epidemic to build a national police force and establish himself as a indispensable crime fighter.

Good book on the depression crime wave

For anyone interested in the birth of the FBI and its first public enemies, this is a good book. It's not just about Dillinger, its about many other infamous criminals as well. Anyone interested in law enforcement should read this

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Very informative!

I thought it was a great book, it really brought a lot of information about the what was happening during the time of the public enemies and what the country was doing about it. It did have it's slow parts and it has a lot of characters, sometimes it feels like there are just many side notes about people in the book. But it has a lot of great true life stories about the criminals and the officers who pursued them.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Public Enemies Good Boys, Bad Boys and the women who stuck with them.

Worth reading. Burrough weaves you through the 30's like a needle through silk. Plus the cover is great.

Public Enemies

I really enjoyed the book. I thought it was an accurate and detailed writing. If you like true crime, you will enjoy this book.

An Absolute Gem - Magnificent!

A fantastic book - I simply couldn't put it down. This is historical writing at its finest. The author's management of timelines was superb, the writing was riveting, the detail, the research, the clarity, all is first-rate. I can't say enough!

Great Historical Book

Loved the writing style of Bryan Burrough. The book was very entertaining and informative. I recommand it to anyone who has an interest in outlaws.

Fantastic and Thrilling Read

I honestly can't believe how entertaining it is to see how interwoven the lives of these orginal gangsters overlapped. Having family from that region that can clearly recollect many of these details only adds to the sense of awe I have. I had to buy two copies, one for me and one for my dad. All in all, an excellent book. The movie is awful however, don't waste your time.

The End of an Era Brought Vividly to Life

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 able to write about Dillinger, "Baby Face" Nelson, and others as well as their FBI pursuers without glorifying them. In this book, the criminals are seen for exactly what they are: criminals, and deadly ones too. And the FBI is portrayed as incredibly incompetent up until the death of John Dillinger. After that, the FBI becomes the premier police force that Hoover dreamed of, as Burrough points out. The worst part about this book is that Burrough never fully explains the appeal the outlaws had in mainstream society. Dillinger and others were famous "Robin Hood" figures in the public imagination, but Burrough only gives the lame explanation of it being the Depression and all that. No doubt that was the biggest contributing factor, but it's not a good enough explanation in my mind. Also, Burrough only mentions some of the extra-legal tactics of the FBI that would come to mark the Bureau under Hoover's reign. In fact, he only describes in detail some of these tactics, like kidnapping a suspect's wife and beating another suspect. But he never goes into greater depth about other events like this. Surely, for a police force that would become notorious for these actions, their origins should have been given a little more air time. In short, this is a great book to look too when looking for the true stories of Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde, and others who are portrayed in movies, especially the recent Johnny Depp/Michael Mann movie based on this book.

A reviewer

I read this book, ejoying it more than any other book I've read dealing with the time period and the formation of the FBI. Many outstanding things about it. The way he told me as a reader which criminals were doing what on given days really brought home the fact that crime occurs all the time, not serially and not like the movies make it look. He was outstanding in putting in facts, questionable facts and outright lies and calling them what they were so you knew what he showing you. Third he showed the foibles and successes of the beginning of the FBI, not the glamorized version Hoover touted. I was honestly saddened when I reached the end of the book...it was that enjoyable a read.

'Public Enemies' True Crime at its best

Public Enemies is one of the most well written pieces of the 'war on crime' in recent years. Burroughs has written a piece that, while it is a historical non-fiction, the use of the actual documents from the 'war' makes it a book that would be just as enjoyable if it were a fiction. Readers will be instantly and fully immersed into the world of depression-era America. They will be able to see the dusty roads, hear every bullet in the chatter of the gunfights. They will see the discussions between Hoover and his rag-tag group of officers that would eventually become the basis of the modern FBI. Burroughs wonderfully shows the roots of what is now one of the most hard-working groups of law enforcement officials in the country today. The thoroughness and seemingly first hand accounts from the collected documents makes this a story that could be read over and over again as simply a story, or referenced for papers and dissertations due to that research. With this book, Burroughs has distanced himself even more from his reputation as a periodical writer, and more as a serious author.

Not bad.

Good read, fairly interesting. I wonder what J. Edgar would think.

Guns and Gangsters take on the FBI

I have always had a fascination regarding J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. This book, Public Enemies¿ gave me a chance to learn more about this era of our history. It was packed with so much information that it is one audio book that I will listen to again and again in order to take in all the facts, names and timeframe described in it. In 1933, there was no FBI so how did this group get its start, and when it was formed, it was not a well oiled group. They did not have guns and when they finally were allowed to, they had to be taught how to use them. They were sloppy on surveillance and allowed the criminals to escape more than once before getting up to speed. What do you know of the gangsters of this era such as John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd and the Barker gang? Did you know Ma Barker was never really a part of the gang? Did you know that Bonnie was badly burned? Where did the term G-Man come from? What were the FBI¿s original duties and who was really responsible for all the captures? This audio book reveals all this and more. Public Enemies describes a less than glamorous life that each of these groups led most of the time. Of course, when they were flush with stolen money, life was good but as the FBI became a better working group, they caused them to run from the law and live hand-to-mouth. The audio book also tells about who was willing to harbor them and what their favorite haunts were. Campbell Scott was the reader and he read well. He did not have a lot of voice changes to denote one person from another so I had to pay close attention to what was being read so I knew who was speaking. The introduction by author, Bryan Burrough, set up what the whole book would tell and he wrote well enough to keep me from wanting to stop the tape. If 1933 and the gangster era holds a fascination for you, grab a copy.

It doesn't get better than this!

My father, Tom McDade, was an FBI agent in the 30's and until I read Bryan Burrough's book I had no idea the life he and his fellow agents led. I now understand why my father and his fellow agents rarely revealed their experiences to family or friends. But now we have 'Public Enemies' to tell us in magnificent detail not only the exploits of John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and the rest of the public enimies of the 1930's, but the often fateful experiences of their apprehenders. Often I have read the one-sided accounts from either the pursuers point of view or the pursued but this book covers both sides with fascinating details. My father would have praised this book(he died in 1996 - the last of the Dillinger Squad)as being completely straight-forward and revealing the both strengths and weaknesses of the criminals and the law.

Top Notch

Best book written on the 1930s Midwest crime wave since Toland's 'Dillinger Days.' Well researched.The narritive is as fast and hard driving as the rat-tat-tat of a Thompson machinegun.

Education on the 'War on Crime'

¿Enemies¿ reads like a the firing of the Thompson machine gun these various 1930 gangs used to overwhelm local police and against the young rookie white collar FBI recruits, who joined the FBI because it was the only job available in the depression. Burrough¿s telling of the ¿War on Crime¿ fires off facts, incidents, characters in a rapid none stop narrative. The telling like a diary in chronological order of who robbed, killed, ambushed, kidnapped and was caught and escaped on any given day. All the while J. Edger Hoover¿s FBI demonstrated they were out manned, outgunned, and really were the keystone cops of sloppy police work. And the press got the publics attention, especially with Dillenger, as they ran with the criminal as underdog ¿hero¿ story. No doubt the book is epic in trying a huge cast of characters, scores of individual FBI agents to six major crime families and there leaders and members. Here you will find The St. Paul Yeggs, Pretty Boy Floyd, The Barrow Gang (Bonnie and Clyde), The Barker-Karpis Gang (Ma Barker), The Baby Face Nelson Gang, and the Dillinger Gang. The narrative is at it¿s best when following Dillinger¿s exploits and the FBI¿s fruitless attempts to capture him and with the Barker-Karpis Gang (Alvin Karpis story begins the book in the prologue and ends the book with his capture and imprisonment). I found the book enjoyable and certainly an education on the ¿War on Crime¿, and give it a definite recommendation, however, after a while all the characters, bank robberies, gun fights, girl friends, chases, missed opportunities become overwhelming and you do on occasion want to say, enough is enough. And all the while I was reading this I thought, WOW shouldn¿t HBO make this a limited TV series, a kind of Band of Brothers of Gangsters.