GANGSTERS, SWINDLERS, KILLERS, AND THIEVES The Lives and Crimes of Fifty American Villains

Hardback. The author features 50 criminals from colonial times to the present, having culled the pages of the 'American National Biography' for a rogues' gallery of assassins, outlaws, bootleggers, con artists, and other figures from the underside of American history. Some, like Jesse James and Joe Colombo, led a life of crime. Others, like John Wilkes Booth and John White Webster, committed one notorious act. A few - Pretty Boy Floyd, Belle Starr, the elusive thief Railroad Bill - became folk heroes, romanticised in popular ballads. Illustrated with archival photographs, each portrait traces the villain's background, exploits, and eventual fate - all with attention to the telling detail. The gangster Dutch Schultz was known not only for bootlegging but also for his cheap, ill-fitting suits. The stagecoach bandit Black Bart, in rhymed notes left behind at his holdups, called himself a poet (or, as the notes said "PO8"). The convicted killer Nathan Leopold worked at a leprosy hospital after his parole. And when the itinerant outlaw Bill Doolin finally met his end, only a rusting buggy axle marked his grave. Many of the miscreants in this book were seen - or saw themselves - as modern-day Robin Hoods, legitimate businessmen, or victims of society. Whether they died in prison or in showdowns with the law, by their hand or at the hands of others, their stories endure for their impact on the popular culture as much as for the magnitude or gravity of their crimes. Illus., A Note on the 'American National Biography', Authors of Articles, Sources and Further Reading + Index and Picture Credits. 288pp. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. F. in F. dw.