PUBLIC ENEMIES. America's Criminal Past 1919-1940

Softcover. Knowledge of Prohibition-era gangsters and Depression-era outlaws comes primarily from what was recorded by a handful of reporters who never imagined their potboiler accounts of bootlegging and gun battles would one day be considered important primary sources and writers who accepted as gospel the FBI's accounts of how new federal laws, scientific methods, and freshly minted G-men enabled the FBI to win the first nationwide "war on crime." This book offers a greatly revised picture of how changing times and technologies revolutionised both crime and crime control as traditionally corrupt and localised police agencies found themselves overwhelmed by lawlessness. It explores the struggle of the American law enforcement agencies to professionalise in a new age of machine guns and motor cars, when gangsters like Al Capone wielded more power than city governments, and outlaws like John Dillinger demonstrated the inability of local police to cope with interstate fugitives. It also revisits the long-accepted accounts of many notorious events that defined a violent and lawless era. The author sheds new light on the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, the Kansas City Massacre, the deliberate killing of Pretty Boy Floyd, and the mystery that still surrounds Baby Face Nelson's death. It also includes the most comprehensive bibliography yet assembled on professional crime in the 20s and 30s, with a fascinating selection of period photographs and illustrations, some rare and never before published. Illus., Bibliog. and Index. 368pp. lge. 8v. softcover. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/pate. F.