Yes Mr. Burrough made a few mistakes with addresses and name spellings but overall I was impressed with how he made all the information flow together so well. This was a huge task to take on and I was surprised how good of a job was done. I did have to dock a star due to the amount Mr. Burrough relied on Alvin Karpis's word for word retelling of events that happened so long ago- it gives the book a bit of a fiction feel to it at times. Overall this was a very good read.

This book has a lot of details and is very good. Don't expect this book to tell you lots and lots about the gangsters of the era... it's more of a detailed account of the FBI and how they got organized. Again, lots of details, making it slow reading, but very good material!

This is a great book. Author infers in his introduction that this was a labor of love and it shows in his writing. At over 500 pages, it shows the relationship of the five major criminal gangs of the 1933-34 time period. Those were the Barker Gang, Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, Machine Gun Kelly, Baby Face Nelson, and Dillenger. With the exception of Bonnie and Clyde (who were strictly small time), all knew each other and helped in raids. None of these people were glamourous since they all murdered people. Dillenger killed three policemen. Bonnie, Clyde, and Baby Face Nelson were psychopaths. Why people had admiration for them is beyond me, but the times were hard and many felt banks were as crooked as those who robbed them.

This book also details the rise of the FBI and how Hoover interferred with the progress of investigations. Purvis was mildly incompetent. Why some of these gangsters roomed the streets was due to FBI leads not being followed up. In the end, the FBI became more professional due to this crime wave. Hoover went on to become the Crime Dictator for forty years.

This is a great book and is very readable. For those interested in the Great Depression and the fall of the bank robbers, this is a treasure trove of information. Highly recommended.

A very interesting book. Let's you know exactly what happens back in the old days. Good reading.

For history buffs, this is a find! I could not put this book down! WoW, loaded, just packed with information on the PUBLIC ENEMIES! With all the fuss now, with Johnny Depp starring in Public Enemies, based on this book, I am sure this will be THE book everyone will have to read. The movie is coming out in 2009. Filmed in the Midwest; Wisconsin, Indiana, etc, and even at Little Bohemia, in Northern Wisconsin, where the Feds goofed up bigtime and J.Edgar Hoover covered, or at least tried to cover up their blunder, when innocent citizens were gunned down, instead of the "gangstas". You will love this, you won't want the book to end, it covers all of them, Johhny Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, Ma Barker and her gang, Machine Gun Kelly. It's all here, and of course, Bonnie and Clyde. You will be right at the scenes, even when they met their bloody early demise, and most of them went out shooting their tommy guns. The author did a magnificent job of researching his subjects. You won't be disappointed spending a weekend reading this one!

This is what good history books should be all about. Mr. Burrough's engaging retelling of the overly romanticized, Depression-era criminals and exposing Hoover's public relations spin for personal gain was very effect. Historians that capably dissect events from the past help us to understand how today's events are also manipulated for political and philosophical gain. As trite as it may sound, history does repeat itself. Mr. Burrough's book is well written and kept me entertained and informed throughout. Thoroughly enjoyable.

I bought this book only to read about the Dillinger Gang's shootout with the G-Men at Little Bohemia Resort in Northern Wisconsin. I started at Chapter One to get a sense of place and time, intending to skip to the part I was interested in. Didn't happen! The entire book is so interesting and action filled, it read like a "thriller" and there was no way I could skip even one page. Imagine, the Dillinger shootout took place during the final two days of Bonnie and Clyde's adventure. Meanwhile, "Baby Face" Nelson, the Barrows Gang, "Pretty Boy" Floyd and all the other "Public Enemies" were running around all over the country and being pursued by J. Edger Hoover's G-men. This is far better than any fiction and is thoroughly documented. Real people doing amazing things...while robbing banks and sleeping in their cars. Best book I have read in some time!

Bryan Burrough's book is an amalgamation of what the gangster era history told in a novelized format. It's an easy read and you don't get bogged down in all the details. It reads like a movie, you can "see" the actions of Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Faced Nelson and John Dillinger as they happened. The upcoming movie based on this book should be just as thrilling to watch. I've enjoyed this book very much!

You have to give the author his due in that he spent a great deal of time in researching and writing a vivid and compelling story of the great crime wave that swept over America during the great depression. He also does a great job of separating fact from legend. Public Enemies provides a solid background on all of the main characters and while not excusing their crimes, does give some key to their motivations.

If there is one complaint I have is that the book can, at times, read like an encyclopedia or that the facts are being recited. It may be a tad overlong but other than that it is a tremendous book.

This is an extremely fun book on the, IMO, most exciting era in American law-enforcement. Some reviews claim it is to long, yes it is long but it is a page turner so the more pages the merrier. I will concede that it may be a bit anti-climatic after Dillinger is brought to justice but that is not the author's fault that is the way history played out and the way the book had to be written since this is the FBI story and not Dillinger's. This book is the perfect introduction to the Depression era bandits. If you have the slightest interest in the Public Enemies of the early 1930's start here. It will either quench your thirst or kindle a life long interest in Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson & Co.

Burrough takes you beyond the comic book version of gangsters and G-men in this detailed look at a unique period of American history. All sorts of interesting tidbits flow out of the pages, all of it based upon solid research. Burrough has said he wanted to avoid any 'speculative' history where the author attempts to interpret events or else posit some theory based upon flimsy evidence. I appreciate that as I've had too many experiences of authors interjecting their theories into history books and rendering the book somewhat ludicrous.

That said, in some places the book does get weighted down under an avalanche of information. In those places I had to slow down in order to follow the story line. However, I didn't find that too big of an issue....not even enough to deduct a star off my rating.

Overall, an excellent read which will give you a comprehensive understanding of the gangster era.

How anyone can find fault with this book is beyond me. Mr. Burroughs is to be commended for a job well done. As a crime aficionado myself who is, unfortunately, usually disappointed in the vast majority of so-called "true crime" stories on the market today, I found "Public Enemies" to be a breath of fresh air in that it was fast-paced, meticulously researched, and exciting. Definitely a keeper in my library!

Whenever you produce an abridged version of any book, there is a risk that you'll edit out things which end up being not just relevant, but even critical to full enjoyment of the work.

That's pretty much the case here.

There is so much encyclopedic material in the full book that the abridgement loses way too many references. The result is, unfortunately, that the devoted reader misses pieces which are really crucial to understanding the huge picture of crime and criminals being painted here.

"Pentimento." I'd recommend skipping the abridged audio version and reading the whole book instead.

I'm never turned off by large, well researched non-fiction books (and rarely write Amazon reviews), but Public Enemies, like the author's other work, Barbarians at the Gate, is unreadable to those without a very special interest in the subject matter primarily due to the overwhelming number of "characters." Mr. Burroughs thoughtfully includes a "cast of characters" in both books, but the books contain so many people that it's impossible to read the texts straight through without constantly doubling back to the cast, taking notes or re-reading sections...reminding me of my college textbook days. What is strange is that although I am a big fan of non-fiction true crime/law enforcement AND business/finance books, I could not get past the 150 page point on either book because the tomes contain so many people/places/events and each person/place/event is given so little time...it felt like reading an encyclopedia and not a book. Mr. Burroughs admits that the bulk of Public Enemies is taken straight from the FBI's own case files...six file cabinets worth. However, the book reads as if Mr. Burroughs went through each file and extracted all the interesting tidbits, then arranged them chronologically with a law enforcement timeline software package like Case Map and BAM...there's the book...a chronological summary of FBI case files with a *wink wink* "look how so-and-so was connected to so-and-so and how so-and-so knew the same people as so-and-so" thrown in. I really wanted to like this book and Barbarians at the Gate, but I plan on giving both books away and never reading another Bryan Burrough book. For a fantastic book on bank robberies, check out Ballad of the Whisky Robber. And The Informant is a great example of how an author can make dry FBI case facts jump of the page...another 5 star read.

a fascinating book about a fascinating time in america. dillinger, baby face nelson, pretty boy floyd, the barker family, machine gun kelly, bonnie and clyde, j edgar hooever, and melvin purvis; all are brought vividly to life on the pages of this terrific book. it's long, but sustained my interest every page of the way. i know of no better book that covers the history of crime in america in the early 1930's than this one. go ahead and read it. you have my approval.

THIS BOOK WAS A GREAT READ FROM FIRST PAGE ON.GREAT DETAIL AND INSIGHT TO THE 1930 GANGSTERS LIKE DILLINGER AND BONNIE AND CLYDE.

Author Bryan Burrough has provided us with over 500 pages detailing the two year time period from 1933--1934 covering the depression era bandits that terrorized primarily the midwestern United States. The book covers the likes of Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, Bonnie and Clyde, and others in a chronological order in regard to time. This necessitates jumping from one outlaw to another, but I did not find this to be bothersome. I would prefer that method as opposed to taking the complete "career" of each character. Burrough states these characters led to the formation of the F.B.I. Jealously ran rampant with J. Edgar Hoover at the helm since the country lionized Melvin Purvis after bringing down John Dillinger. Purvis wasn't bashful about giving interviews regarding the part he played bringing down these thugs. Hoover seethed at his former protege's publicity. Hoover wanted no agent to get any individual credit. However, Hoover, had no quams about having the public focus on him as the man who was responsible for bringing down these gangsters. All these two bit outlaws shared one thing in common. They always had to be on the alert to being discovered and caught. Living in drafty apartments, sleeping in cars, bathing in rivers, having their bullet wounds treated by questionable doctors, and a desire to have a normal family relationship that normal people enjoyed all were part of the lifestyle all these shady characters had in common. This book is a lengthy read, but it is well worth your time if this part of American history is of interest to you.

This review refers to the hardback version: The book certainly supercedes John Toland's The Dillinger Days as the comprehensive history of the 1930's gangster era. Like Toland's book, it interweaves the stories of these various criminals. While this occasionally makes for some confusion, the sense of an almost uncontrollable crime wave is certainly
delivered by this method: it seems that some big caper was happening almost every day. Most interesting in the book are
vignettes which seem to answer the conundrums of the time -
chiefly because the author had access to FBI files and unpublished interviews (e.g., the ones Bill Trent did with Alvin Karpis 35 years ago). For example:
1). most likely Pretty Boy Floyd WAS at the Kansas City Massacre, with Verne Miller. "Eddie" Richetti was not there.
2). the term "G-men" DID arise at the time of Machine Gun
Kelly's (or Kelley's - it was an alias and can be spelled either way - see period newspapers) arrest in Memphis. Hoover did not invent it. Kelly's wife came up with it.
3). Melvin Purvis was chased out of the FBI not solely because of Hoover's jealousy, but also because he was a press-hound (not beloved of any bureacracy).
As others have noted, the only real detraction in the book is
its numerous misspellings or miscalculations - not simply occasional typos, but unrelenting.

For example (not comprehensive):
1). The Barker-Karpis thief was not Bryan Bolton, but Byron
(or Monty) Bolton.
2). Emil Wanatka - not Emil Wanetka - was the proprietor of
Little Bohemia.
3).The Richettis' town was Bolivar, Missouri, not Boliver
(remember Simon Bolivar?)
4). "Barber's itch" - Dillinger's affliction - is mentioned and it is stated that "according to some stories it was a ringworm infection." Barber's itch is a lay term for what is usually a Staphylococcal or fungal (ringworm) infection.
5). On page 267 is described an event taking place on "Friday night, March 31st." On page 272 is described an event
taking place on "Easter Sunday, April 1." On p.54, an agent is described as arriving by airplane "seventeen hours after the [Kansas City] massacre." It was 2:30 a.m., the day after the shoot out, which occurred at 7:15 a.m. - about nineteen hours.
6). "Bullets" is the term used throughout for cartridges.
7). Every once in a while the current jargon intrudes.
"Salesperson" is a product of modern-day feminism, as is the
ear-grating mismatch of pronouns ("No one...identified themselves"). There is an occasional "off of" or split infinitive, but these niceties are perhaps of a by-gone era
(like 1933, when they weren't as intelligent as we are).
8). The Cleveland suburb is Newburgh Heights, not Newberg Heights (p. 431).
9). Dillinger's grave is not marked by an obelisk. There is
an upright family stone and then flat, individual markers (been there).
OK, some of this may be pedantic and this is not Herodotus, but it's annoying.
This is a great one-man achievement and now the standard, but you have to watch the details.

I would have to put this book as one of the best I have read. This book is very well researched with plenty of documentation as to where the author got his information. It flows well and tells of the daily crimes and movements of many of the 1930s gangsters and the lawmen who chased them down. I would highly recommend this book to even those not particularly interested in true crime or of this genre.

Mike Koch, author of "The Kimes Gang."

On and on and on and on and on and ...a disappointing book because of its long-winded, rambling style, this effort should be about 200 pages shorter. Especially annoying is Burrough's obvious glee when pointing out what he believes to be the shortfalls of FBI investigative techniques and accomplishments IN THE 1930s! Hoover and all the G-men are portrayed as complete baffoons while the criminals are, to an extent, glorified. Although the author claims in the "Author's Note" that most of the material in the book has been authenticated and verified, some of it stretches the imagination. He is frequently given to recounting documents or conversations in which he includes a number of "..." references. Just what was left out? Something that didn't bolster his case relative to how inept the FBI was? There is a snippet of review from Time on the cover that says the book is "ludicrously entertaining"--as the definition of "ludicrous" is "ridiculous", I'd say that they got the first part right. This is a tedious and overall relatively boring work about what should be an exciting subject. Particularly absurd in a book that claims to be based on such intensive research is the author's numerous references to "Irving Park Boulevard" in Chicago when, as any Cub fan knows, it is "Irving Park ROAD". Much too long and much too dull.

An excellent history of the birth of the FBI as a national crime-fighting organization. Mr. Burrough has done a tremendous amount of research and has thoroughly documented the facts behind one of the greatest crime waves in American history. He has sorted through and compared all the stories and official records and other published accounts to present the truth as far as possible regarding the criminal gangs of 1933-34: John Dillenger, the Barker Gang, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie & Clyde, etc. Also profiled are the men who brought them to justice: Mel Purvis, Sam Cowley, and many of the individual agents. Burrough doesn't shy away from reporting the many mistakes the FBI made in their hunts, as they learned to deal with the criminals as an organization coming of age during the Depression, but he also gives them credit for having grown into an effecient organization.

I found this book to be a very interesting and EXTREMELY thorough read. I am impressed with the research that must have gone into writting this. Some times, there is almost too much detail, but the detail included is always appropriate to the events presented. For example, J. Edgar Hoover's life and exploits outside the Bureau are largely ignored. Overall, I found it an insightful look into an era that is largely forgotten.

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.

There is such a fascination with the characters of the book like Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker, and the rest. And although this book gives you that glimpse into that time and those people by bringing all the characters to life, it does an even better job of correcting myths and connecting the FBI into those times. Without overdoing the footnotes, this historical look into the early 1930s is a great way to understand how America then and now. I recommend it to everyone I meet.

This is a terrific account of the two year "War on Crime" of 1934-35. Started by the Roosevelt administration it was Hoover's launching pad for the FBI.

Mr. Burrough's research was exhaustive - the book was bursting with facts in text and footnotes. Aided by recently declassified FBI files, Mr. Bourrough was able to piece together the short but notable careers of Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, the Barkers and their gangs. Other sources included first hand accounts and those of relatives and survivors. Due to the opening of the files, the author was able to debunk some of the myths that have developed in books and movies. He was also able to identify and debunk the mythology that was spawned by Hoover's imagination and his PR machine. The bumbling of the early g-men was amazing when placed next to their more recent images as paragons of images of efficiency. Some of their failures were outright humorous.

Adding to the book, is that Burrough's accounts of the robberies and manhunts were written to be as exciting as fiction.

The only criticisms of this book is that at times it dipped into minutae. It is so dense and fact-filled, I wished I had kept a scorecard from the outset. Also, the book is arranged chronically, so it would switch from gang to gang even if one was in the middle of a long kidnapping scheme. At times this broke the continuity, making the reader have to go back to review what a particular gang was doing.

That is a minor criticism when weighed against the fascinating stories so painstakingly researched and well told.

Highly recommended.

The truth is more fantastic than the movies that mythologized this era. This era, rendered timeless by the movies, in reality consumed only about 18 months, during which time the gangsters detailed within came to fame and, with one exception (Alvin Karpis), died of very unnatural causes. Dillinger remains the most interesting of the bunch, Baby Face Nelson the most repulsive. These were some bad hombres, and the modern FBI was created, at considerable cost in the lives of its agents, in quite literally hunting them down and killing them. The reaction of the public to the criminals -- frequently crowding bank robbery sites to get a peek at Tommy-gun wielding killers, or truculently resisting the oddly polite requests from the same Thompson-wielding killers to give up their cars -- is equally interesting, and shows that we live in different times.

This extensively researched book has it all - crime, sex, lies, Government cover-ups and it's all true. Burrough digs below the myth of Hoover, Dilinger, Karpis, Bonnie and Clyde to show us what it was really like an what really happened. Could not put it down.

Bryan Burrough does a superb job of simultaneously debunking myths while at the same time creating an even more fascinating story. In Public Enemies, the author examnies the crime wave of 1933-34, focusing on Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, the Barker-Karpis Gang, Bonnie and Clyde, Machine Gun Kelly, and Pretty Boy Floyd. He demonstrates how these criminals and their respective crime sprees built the reputation of the FBI and, in essence, created the force as was known for decades afterwards. The book is a wonderful read and the author even manages to make the seemingly endless stream of bank robberies individually interesting. The ineptness of the beginning attempts of law enforcement to come to grips with the crime wave is beautifully wrought as is all the networks of connections between the varioujs criminals. A delightful book that captures a fascinating time.

Public Enemies was an ambitious undertaking by Burrough because to satisfy the often encyclopedic-minded history buff with a book that discusses every big-name criminal in the early thirties, as well as the genesis of the FBI, is a tall order indeed.

So how did the author handle it? Perhaps in the most logical way -- chronologically. This approach is somewhat difficult for the reader. One day you are in North Texas with one set of characters. Not with just the criminals, but their cronies, victims, and others, ALL of whom have names. Then you're in Northern Indiana two days later with 5-15 others, then a week later you're in Eastern Kansas with a dozen others. You do this with seven or eight groups and then start all over again. For the first third of the book, your head might well be spinning as you try to parse out who's who, anticipating that you'll need the information later, which indeed you will.

As luck would have it, as you progress, people start getting killed off and some of that settles down.

By the time you work through the period, you WILL know who all these people were, their geneses, and their fates. And after all, that's why you read it, right?

It is also great to get a flavor for the state of law enforcement, economic conditions, and cultural aspects that allowed these notorious characters to spawn and flourish.

That said, I found the book's treatment of the birth of the FBI, and of Hoover, quite uninteresting. But that is not why most of us picked up this book. We want Public Enemies, and this book delivers on that part of the promise.

Found this book to be fascinating. Loved the use of the timeline approach. Having lived 50 miles from Little Bohemia and listening to my father talk about the gangster era, it dispeled my thought that this was a decade of violence vs. 1 year. The book shows the the development of a professional FBI and all the ups and downs attendent with this development. It also showed the criminals in a balanced light, even bad people do good deeds.

Here is a book that deserves careful study--and reads so much like a really well-made documentary that we don't feel like it's work at all! Written with obvious enthusiasm and a clear, crisp tone, the author's style is so well-crafted that we don't notice it--he never gets in the way of his subject. The subject is fascinating, historically significant, and presented in a manner that never "gives away" the ending, as this master of non-fiction slowly reveals the remarkable growth of the FBI during a time in U.S. history that was ruled by fear of the mobs--and glamour of renegade criminals. Perfectly conceived and written with panache.

Reading "Public Enemies" is to be transported to the United States of the 1930's. The country seemed peopled with colorful, if ultimately dangerous, criminals like John Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde and Pretty Boy Floyd and their more anonymous counterparts in law enforcement.
Author Bryan Burroughs re-creates the times, the language, the attitudes, the mores as he tells the story of the rise and fall of celebrity criminals. This is one of those works of non-fiction that is awe inspiring for the breadth and depth of its research alone. That the author is a good storyteller adds to the books magic.
One of the more striking realizations from reading "Public Enemies" was how much the movies of the time and immediately after actually captured the talk and manner and actions of these famous criminals and the fates that awaited them.
Also noteworthy is the transformation of the FBI and others in law enforcement from a bumbling bunch of Keystone Cops to an efficient crime fighting force. The first half of the book is replete with bungled arrests, leads not followed and daring escapes under the very noses of the law.
Some may feel that Burroughs goes into excessive detail in following the daily paths of the criminals. But this reader was fascinated and enjoyed the ride. Prior to "Public Enemies" I knew little about the charismatic Dillinger and didn't know my Pretty Boy Floyd, from my Baby Face Nelson from my Machine Gun Kelly. Now I'm well acquainted with these characters and those who pursued them.
If one can temporarily ignore the cost in lives and resources inflicted by these criminals their stories is as the best of fiction, with daring deeds, colorful characters, shootouts and ultimate justice.
Burroughs places the people and events in context of the times and reveals how the successful killing and capture of these very public enemies led to the rise of the FBI and its director J. Edgar Hoover. This is not a particularly flattering portrait of Hoover (frankly, I don't think he deserves one). Seen in a far better light are the anonymous agents and police who put in considerable time and their lives on the line in pursuit of the public enemies.
This is an awesome book with an appeal to those already well versed in the times and events and those seeking an introduction to them.

Anyone wishing to learn the unvarnished truth about the origin and expansion of the FBI need look no further than this book. It is an excellent, well-written work about the War on Crime initiated by the Federal Government in 1933-34 that turned the FBI from a bumbling group of college men into the professional establsihment it is today. The book doesn't gloss over the FBI's initial failures, and their attempts to cover up their mistakes, but it does show that the agents learned their trade "on the job", and ultimately triumphed, even if often their success came about by accident. We are given thorough histories for the initial "public enemies" of the '30s: Machine Gun Kelly, Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dillinger, etc.. My only quibble was that the book followed a strict time line and often that approach was confusing as it shifted back and forth among the criminals. However, I learned to keep the characters straight, and that helped quite a bit. Anyone interested in this subject, and this period of our nation's history, will thoroughly enjoy this book.

We simply can't resist. Give Americans a good cops and robbers story, and there's bound to be a movie not too far behind. This is especially true when the tale is filled with household names shown as everyday people.

And that is precisely what this book does. For the first time, we've been provided a universal perspective of characters, events, successes and failures, and luck (fortunate and unfortunate!) related to the beginning of the FBI and the crime wave that ignited its need.

Yep, I couldn't help myself. The stereotypes imbedded since my youth are so vividly drawn. I was rooting for John Dillinger even though I've known his destiny since I was eight years old. Old Man Hoover, a bumbling inspector who excelled in politics and media manipulation, actually at times seems a worst character than the criminals.

It's a fantastic book that reads faster than a bank robber leaves the vault. It's well researched and just plain readable. The bad guys (and gals) had highly intricate relationships, which Mr. Burrough masterfully weaves together throughout the historical journey.

Oh what a great movie this will make. I suspect the leading talents in Hollywood are already pushing agents for a juicy part. Gimme a Coke and some buttered popcorn!

But don't simply wait for the movie. This is a must-read book for anyone even remotely interested in contemporary U.S. history.

We simply can't resist. Give Americans a good cops and robbers story, and there's bound to be a movie not too far behind. This is especially true when the tale is filled with household names shown as everyday people.

And that is precisely what this book does. For the first time, we've been provided a universal perspective of characters, events, successes and failures, and luck (fortunate and unfortunate!) related to the beginning of the FBI and the crime wave that ignited its need.

Yep, I couldn't help myself. The stereotypes imbedded since my youth are so vividly drawn. I was rooting for John Dillinger even though I've known his destiny since I was eight years old. Old Man Hoover, a bumbling inspector who excelled in politics and media manipulation, actually at times seems a worst character than the criminals.

It's a fantastic book that reads faster than a bank robber leaves the vault. It's well researched and just plain readable. The bad guys (and gals) had highly intricate relationships, which Mr. Burrough masterfully weaves together throughout the historical journey.

Oh what a great movie this will make. I suspect the leading talents in Hollywood are already pushing agents for a juicy part. Gimme a Coke and some buttered popcorn!

But don't simply wait for the movie. This is a must-read book for anyone even remotely interested in contemporary U.S. history.

It was about thirty years ago that I read Toland's Dillinger Days, a delightful book. I read it again about 7 years ago and it still held my attention. Burrough's book seems to be more detailed with a lot of newly discovered facts but all the time I was reading it I felt that it was a rehash of the same things talked about in Toland's book. Unless you are a real crime buff and you've read Dillinger Days, you may want to pass on this book....otherwise, it's a great book, well written and educational about a period of American history that the MTV generation probably doesn't have a clue it ever existed.

Between mid June 1933 and the end of 1935 Americans were caught up in the war on crime. J. Edgar Hoover's FBI were trying to rid the country of criminals whose names we still recognize today.....John Dillenger, Bonnie and Clyde,Baby Face Nelson,Alvin Karpis,Ma Barker and her boys. The Lindbergh kidnaping had left a deeply shaken nation, and Hoover wanted his department to lead the way to a new crime free era. Hoover's men didn't carry guns,they investigated. That set them at adistinct disadvantage to the gangsters, they carried guns and were willing to use them. Set against the backdrop of the Depression, Byran Burrough introduces us to a group of unforgettable persons,stripping away myth. Interestingly, Hoover, himself is responsible for many of the myths that sprang up about the G men. These G men were mostly
college educated, mixed with some seasoned lawmen who shared the visionof a national bureau designed to stamp out crime. Some were more driven towards self promotion(Melvin Purvis's legend takes a beating)which was in direct competition with Hoover's need to micro manage and claim the glory.
Familiar crime figures are given faces(not the most attractive bunch)and their backgrounds are fleshed out.The emergence of the planned bank robbery,with getaway car and lookouts raised the stakes. Many of these criminals shared loose ties and often you find members of one gang involved in another's scheme. In a somewhat telling moment Bonnie Parker, when asked what she wanted the public to know about her
replied "I don't smoke cigars". As crimes are carried out, these gangs seem to get away, almost at will. The FBI are slow on the trail, hampered by local police(often corrupt)and their own infighting and unwillingness to check tips and follow up leads. As the public humiliation grows,the bureau begins to catch some lucky breaks and more seasoned lawmen come on determined to stop the lawlessness.The bureau
as we now know it began to develop in those months.Thoroughly
researched, Public Enemies not only captures the times but accurately portrays the drudgery both a life of crime and a life chasing crime. Some old stories weather the closer look....Dillinger's betrayal by the woman at the movie theater. Some are new.....Hoover insisting on "arresting" Alvin Karpis after being embarrassed in congressional hearings. A must read for anyone who grew up on "The Untouchables" and old gangster movies.

Having grown up in the 1940's and living in Shreveport (Bonnie and Clyde always a discussion topic), the bad boys in this book were very real to me as a youngster.
This is a great book that covers all the bases of the headliner public enemies of the era. I especially liked the time line reference and we followed them from their beginnings to the inevitable end.
Good book. Buy it.

Great overall study of the Midwest crime wave of the early 1930s.Well written and a real page-turner.Best book on the subject since Toland's "Dillinger Days"....

"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", a 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.

This is a magnificent story. It is a story of murderous men who took what they wanted and simply killed anyone who got in their way. The killers described in this book killed police officers as casually as little boys stomp on ants. No one, it seemed, was going to stop them. The FBI did. And FBI agents died in the process. The Bureau was thrown into a job it was not prepared for, but it learned the hard way and eventually it won. Burroughs shows the FBI struggling in its infancy but he has genuine respect for these men who had to work 15 hours a day and face sub-machine gun wielding bank robbers.
He is fair to the FBI. He is fair to its leader, J. Edgar Hoover. He is even fair to the murderers whose crimes got the FBI "thrown" into the job of national manhunts. There is so much information here and it is told briskly and interestingly. This is the kind of book which should win awards, but never seems to do so. This is an epic story of two years in America. Forget the other books about Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson and the others. Just read this one and you will know what happened.

Public Enemies is a story of a time only three generations past. Millions upon millions of Americans were unemployed and dispossessed. Banks which had forcibly evicted many of the hapless whose impoverishment they had at least partially caused.

A few bank robbers became folk heroes. Others seeing this fame thought bank robbing should be their career. None of the bank robbers, despite their perceived Robin Hood ethic, were anything other than criminals, taking what belonged to others and often murdering innocents in the process.

Local law enforcement at the time was frequently corrupt (as it is today) and limited by lack of technology. Burrough describes how FBI agents had to leave their posts to find payphones to telephone in their progress reports.

As a part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal - and to justify the intrusion of the federal government into state and local affairs - the FBI was given the task of bringing these "Public Enemies" to "justice."

The egomanical J. Edgar Hoover and his agents had as little respect for the law as the bank robbers and kidnappers they pursued. And they were no more competent.

Burrough catalogs the often tragic comedy of errors as the embryonic FBI chased their targets. Agents had to learn how to shoot, how to conduct surveillance, how to collate information. In short, most often it was dumb luck that resulted in the apprehension - and often summary execution - of the "most wanted."

The FBI's tactics included kidnapping, secret detention and possibly physical abuse.

The press, no brighter in those days than now, played the events like a ping-pong ball, alternately praising the criminals and than lionizing law enforcement.

Burrough pays attention to the details. He has no favorites here. And, when all is said, the reader probably won't either.

Jerry

As it is generally thought of, the great crime wave of 1933/1934 that turned the FBI into a major organization and made household names out of Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Bonnie and Clyde, and the Barker Gang is in fact really just a story of your everyday basic thugs and killers who were connected together in the shadowy underworld of post-prohibition America.

According to Burrough, whose research is amazing in its scope and ability to "correct" other books, these criminals that are still household names today were simply the result of a couple of coincidences.

1 - The peak of the depression in the midwest had driven many people into poverty. This increase in poverty led to more crime. Also, since so many people were broke or bankrupt due to banks taking their property, bank robbers were viewed as heroes to many.

2 - The FBI in 1932 was primarily an organization designed to find kidnappers. This all changed when, for the first time, an FBI agent was killed in the line of duty (Kansas City Massacre). From then on, the FBI, under Herbert Hoover, went about trying to make itself into a national police force.

3 - The large number of criminals operating at the same time made it appear as if America were experiencing a "Crime Wave", when in fact it was just a short term by-product of the Depression.

4 - The FBI should've caught all of them numerous times but blew it because they were still trying to work out the kinks in their new role as a national police force.

I don't want to give too much away, so I will simply say this:

Even though the real stories of these criminals is less exciting than the myths about them, Burrough does a wonderful job of telling their stories, which are still more interesting and exciting than any fiction I have read in years.


Highly Recommended!

When I first opened this credible, well-researched book, I was delighted to see photos of the FBI agents I have admired in my own Dillinger research. For the first time, a face to the men who put their lives on the line to hunt the public enemies of the 1930s! Also, as a person who has researched the Dillinger women for almost two decades, my delight with the book was established at the respect Burrough paid to the molls. Doris Lockerman's eyewitness account of the night Melvin Purvis helped Frechette, by letting her sleep during the endless interrogation - that is not an anti-FBI story but a pro-FBI story.

The term "plagiarism," in one review, confuses me completely. The use of quotes originally published under copyright by Melvin Purvis, is "fair use," not "plagiarism." Fair use is defined by publishing law, and there is no evidence of such encroachment here. In defense of quoting Melvin Purvis - the man was hounded and silenced by Hoover. It is important that readers, who may not have purchased Purvis's book, get the vantage point of his own opinions.

I agree with Rick Mattix that downloadable FBI documents are the tip of the iceberg. The FBI Reading Room holds the true history in the 38,000 pages on file in the stacks. Burrough has widely, and accurately, cited those documents.

And where is it written that historians can no longer examine the role of Melvin Purvis? Mr. Purvis, one of my heroes in the Dillinger saga, has inspired controversy since his original role in the FBI ended. Mr. Burrough went to great length to feature the faces of the FBI agents in a never-before published photo gallery. He honored their role by doing so.

For readers who hunger for more information on the peripheral gang members, there is a lot of new material. The true address of the St. Andrews Hotel in New York City, for instance, where John Paul Chase lammed with Sally Bachman, is one important detail I've never seen. Also, Burrough confirmed my suspicions that Lester Gillis never trusted Bachman. This book offers many levels upon which the reader can discern with intelligence and objectivity.

Mr. Burrough is a talented writer. Public Enemies is very well written and he has an abundance of information within the pages of his manuscript. Any reader that states this book is a "miss" did not bother to sit down and actually read it. It is a must have for the home collection.

"Public Enemies" is a an excellent book, loaded with detail and extremely readable. Burrough's unique approach to the subject matter (showing how the careers of the criminals and their pursuers intertwined over a remarkably short period of time) allows us to see ALL sides of the people and the events involved. As a result, it is neither pro-criminal nor pro-FBI -- rather it is a fascinating documentary of a remarkable time period in American history.

Bryan Burrough is a columnist for Vanity Fair magazine. In this book he examines the lives and infamous careers of such
notorious bank robbers, kidnappers and murderers as John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, The Barker-
Karpas game of hoodlums , Machine Gun Kelly and Bonnie and Clyde.
Burrough's chief thesis is how John Edgar Hoover and his FBI
became powerful as they learned to combat public enemies during 1933-34 from the time agents were gunned down in the Kansas City Massacre to the capture of Karpas and the deaths of severalpublic enemies.
Hoover was an egotist wise in the ways of self-promotiion as he denigrated the work of such star agents at Melvin Purvis,
Hoover's FBI made crimes against "G'Men" a federal crime and
made the agency and its formidable director a powerful force in the Washington power game for decades to come.
The book is interesting with good maps of the escapades of the criminals and pictures of the various criminal gangs. It was
easy, however, to get all the names and crimes from getting mixed up.
This book could have been edited into a series of magazine profiles but is an interesting read for anyone interested in crime, life in the Great Depression or the career of J. Edgar
Hoover.

Those reviewers who claim that Burrough is pro-criminal, that he denigrates Melvin Purvis and/or the FBI, or that there's nothing new in this book, clearly skimmed or sleepwalked through it. Burrough does no such thing. The criminals are presented as the homicidal sociopaths they really were. If the G-men come across as somewhat bungling at times it's because they were a group of mostly young, inexperienced, and largely untrained lawyers who were suddenly propelled into full scale combat with well-armed professional criminals. This is the story of how the FBI became the FBI and contrary to what one reviewer wrote, it is crammed full of new information, largely dredged from FBI files (not the shallow downloadable summaries contained on the FBI website but the many thousands of pages of documents buried in the FOIA office). Where else for example has the true story of the origin of the term "G-men" appeared? Or the Alvin Karpis-Fred Goetz plot to kidnap a member of the Capone syndicate? There is perhaps more conversation than necessary and the wording is probably not exactly as it originally was but it's by no means fictitious. It comes straight from interview transcripts by the late Bill Trent with late Public Enemy Number 1 Alvin Karpis and from Burrough's own interviews with surviving witnesses and relatives of participants. Read sourcenotes, please. What we have here is a highly readable account of the first great national war on crime, from both sides of the fence. It flows surprisingly well considering it covers the almost daily interweaving actions of Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie and Clyde, the Barker-Karpis gang, Machine Gun Kelly, and the lawmen who pursued them. Far from glorifying the criminals, this book also gives names and faces to the many federal agents, not just Melvin Purvis, who risked their lives to bring in the gangsters. This is the definitive story of America's greatest crime wave.

Public Enemies is just the book I've been waiting for on the subject of depression-era gangsters. Burrough's access to previously unpublished documents transforms the story of this fascinating era from pulp/pop into elegantly written history, and his clear prose and gift for narration make this book nearly impossible to put down. It's a delight.

I've read pretty much every book that has ever been written on the gangster era, and found that this widely hyped book added very little to whatever has been published out there.
His much-heralded new FBI reports don't add very much to the established body of knowledge on the subject. And that is of no surprise to anyone who has ever read the FBI reports that are available in the online reading room.
A shame. I looked forward to this book and was disappointed.

The reviewer who calls this a pro-criminal book should have his head examined. This book replaces the cartoon characters in our heads with the names Bonnie, Clyde, Dillinger, et al, with 3-dimensional human beings, and they're not pretty. They're compelling, because they're such monsters, but this is hardly a positive portrayal of these legendary ciminals! The heroes here are the FBI, who we see learning on the job, recovering from their disastrous mistakes, and taking these criminals down in the end. I bought this book b/c I read a review in TIme that called it "massively researched and ludicrously entertaining," and boy are both true.