Download or read book Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd written by Jeffery S. King and published by Kent State University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Arthur Floyd, aka Pretty Boy Floyd (1904-1934), was one of the last so-called Robin Hood outlaws. He engaged in numerous bank-robbing exploits across the Midwest until federal agents and local police shot him down near East Liverpool, Ohio, on October 22, 1934. This detailed account of his life, crimes and death makes extensive use of FBI reports, government records, local newspapers and contemporary journalistic accounts.
Download or read book Pretty Boy The Life and Times of Charles Arthur Floyd written by Michael Wallis and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-07-18 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This engaging biography exactly and vividly catches the tone of a region, a time, and a man."—Larry McMurtry From the best-selling author of Billy the Kid and Route 66, a true-life story of a notorious outlaw that magnificently re-creates the vanished, impoverished world of Dust Bowl America. Michael Wallis evokes the hard times of the era as he follows the life of Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd from his coming of age, when there were no jobs and no food, to his descent into a life of petty crime, bootlegging, murder, and prison. Before long he was one of the FBI's original "public enemies." After a series of spectacular bank robberies he was slain in an Ohio field in 1934 at the age of thirty. Pretty Boy is social history at its best, portraying, with a sweeping style, the larger story of the hardscrabble farmers whose lives were so intolerably shattered by the Depression.
Download or read book Pretty Boy Floyd written by Larry McMurtry and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The time is 1925. The place, St. Louis, Missouri. Charley Floyd, a good-looking, sweet-smiling country boy from Oklahoma, is about to rob his first armored car. Written by Pulitzer Prize–winner Larry McMurtry and his writing partner, Diana Ossana, Pretty Boy Floyd traces the wild career of the legendary American folk hero Charley Floyd, a young man so charming that it's hard not to like him, even as he's robbing you at gunpoint. From the bank heists and shootings that make him Public Enemy Number One to the women who love him, from the glamour-hungry nation that worships him to the G-men who track Charley down, Pretty Boy Floyd is both a richly comic masterpiece and an American tragedy about the price of fame and the corruption of innocence.
Download or read book The Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd written by Jeffery S. King and published by . This book was released on 2005-10 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jeffery King's entertaining biography of the Public Enemy Number One of 1934 is a piece of historical detective work that is scholarly as well as gripping. He not only relates Floyd's life & career from youth to death from lawmen's bullets, but chronicles the many crimes in which he took part or masterminded. King brings us back to the days of John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, & Ma Barker & her boys. Amidst these robbin' hoods, Floyd was seen as Robin Hood . . . . Like a populist politician, he convinced others & perhaps himself that he was, after all, only robbing the big money guys & that he loved the poor. King's story, based mainly on FBI files & contemporary newspaper accounts, moves along like a well-maintained getaway car. Black & white photos.
Download or read book Public Enemies written by Bryan Burrough and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-04-29 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Public Enemies, bestselling author Bryan Burrough strips away the thick layer of myths put out by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI to tell the full story—for the first time—of the most spectacular crime wave in American history, the two-year battle between the young Hoover and the assortment of criminals who became national icons: John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Barkers. In an epic feat of storytelling and drawing on a remarkable amount of newly available material on all the major figures involved, Burrough reveals a web of interconnections within the vast American underworld and demonstrates how Hoover’s G-men overcame their early fumbles to secure the FBI’s rise to power.
Download or read book Pretty Boy Floyd The Notorious Life and Death of the Depression Era Outlaw written by Charles River Editors and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes contemporary accounts *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "If you'll gather 'round me, children, a story I will tell'Bout Pretty Boy Floyd, an Outlaw, Oklahoma knew him well." - Woody Guthrie, "The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd" (1939) November 1, 1932 was a fine autumn day in the sleepy, cotton-farming city of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, the heart of Sequoyah County. The blinding rays of the midday sun were shining their brightest, but the otherwise blistering heat was offset by a brisk breeze. These were ideal conditions for a Tuesday, a seemingly pedestrian day of the week, but what was unfolding in the Sallisaw State Bank was anything but ordinary. At first glance, it would seem as if a traveling carnival or a homegrown celebrity had come to town. The sidewalks of the city bank and its surrounding establishments were teeming with locals, generations of families, young lovebirds, and clusters of friends. Indeed, they had convened to witness a spectacle, albeit one of an entirely different sort. The doors of the Sallisaw State Bank swung open with a resounding bang, signaling the start of the show. Out staggered a pair of thieves, each toting bulging sacks of bills and coins and glinting Colt .45s. The hogtied tellers inside the bank desperately wriggled across the floor to voice their distress, craning their necks and directing their muffled screams towards the open door. One had even managed to squirm out of his gag and was calling out to the crowd across the street for help. Unfortunately, his cries were negated, not by the spectators' own cries of alarm, but by thunderous applause, supplemented by whoops, whistles, and a constellation of waving handkerchiefs. Some of those who cleared the path for the robbers' getaway car were supposedly patrons present in the establishment during the stick-up itself. The ringleader, a striking young gentleman with a square jaw, a smoldering squint, and dark hair slicked back with scented pomade, acknowledged his admirers with a quick nod before ducking into the running vehicle. According to local lore, quite a few of the spectators had been briefed on the robbery beforehand by none other than the ringleader himself. So bold was he in his endeavors that he strolled into the bank's neighboring establishments in the days prior and simply asked its proprietors to refrain from ringing the cops, to which they gladly agreed. He even left those complicit with enough time to extract their savings from the bank. The dashing ringleader, hailed by many as the "Robin Hood of Cookson Hills," was none other than Pretty Boy Floyd, a perplexing character as abhorred as he was revered. To the feds, Pretty Boy Floyd was a venomous, manipulative scoundrel who was egregiously lionized as an anti-hero with a heart of gold. A career bank robber supposedly associated with up to 40 bank robberies, his face would soon be plastered on the 1934 poster of the FBI's Most Wanted alongside John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Alvin Karper. He was also implicated in multiple murders, yet Pretty Boy Floyd's admirers have been willing to overlook these crimes, with some even providing justifications for his behavior and contending that he was unfairly vilified for fighting an unjust system. To them, he was singled out as a scapegoat, and he used that angle himself, once noting, "I guess I've been accused of everything that has happened, except the kidnapping of the Lindbergh child, last spring." As this all suggests, it is virtually impossible to assemble a thoroughly objective profile of the outlaw more than 80 years after his life of crime.
Download or read book Carl Janaway Smartest Bandit of the Cookson Hills written by Gary D. Courtney and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2008 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carl Janaway - The Smartest Bandit of the Cookson Hills Last Surviving Bank Robber of the 1930's, Builder of getaway cars for "Pretty Boy" Floyd, Nursemaid to Al Capone in Alcatraz Prison. by Gary D. Courtney The life, times, and character of one of the most elusive gangsters of the 1930's era, who survived by going straight after prison and becoming an upstanding citizen. Based upon the author's month-long museum exhibit of Carl Janaway's possessions and story, which filled the John Vaughn Library lobby at Northeastern State University. Famous Sheriff Grover Bishop, who killed more men (17) than Wyatt Earp, chased Carl Janaway over 3,000 miles, and couldn't catch him. Carl's wife was also a bank robber, called the "Blonde Bandit", of rough and rowdy Vian, Oklahoma. Janaway spent time in Alcatraz Prison with some of the deadliest gangsters of the time.
Download or read book John Dillinger written by Dary Matera and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2005-05-20 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Dillinger is an adrenaline-fueled narrative that reignites America's fascination with the suave and deadly desperado who became the FBI's first Public Enemy, whose story—until now—has been riddled with rumors and fiction. Dillinger and his bank-robbing gang cut a criminal swath never to be equaled, thrilling a nation in the throes of the Great Depression. When caught, Dillinger staged one of the most harrowing prison escapes imaginable—only to finally be betrayed by the infamous "Lady in Red." John Dillinger brings to light bank robberies never before reported; detailed plans for major crimes that Dillinger nearly implemented; the revelation that the Lady in Red was actually a police plant; and the startling motives behind John Dillinger's execution by rogue FBI agents. With access to the thousands of sources collected in the world's foremost Dillinger archives—including dozens of photographs—New York Times bestselling author Matera describes every robbery, shoot-out, and prison escape as though he had choreographed them himself.
Download or read book Baby Face Nelson written by Steven Nickel and published by Cumberland House Publishing. This book was released on 2002 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using new information that comes from the formerly classified files of the FBI, this book tells the full story of the remarkable criminal career of Baby Face Nelson. Illustrations.
Download or read book The Vendetta written by Alston Purvis and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2005-10-10 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: His son tells the life story of Melvin Purvis, once an iconic G-man and public hero, who was destroyed not by the famous villains of the 1930s but by the jealousy of his boss, J. Edgar Hoover.
Download or read book The Union Station Massacre written by Robert Unger and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 1997 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using the original eighty-nine volumes of FBI case file, journalist/scholar Unger reveals what really happened on that June day in 1933. He describes how the FBI turned the massacre case into a witch hunt for "Pretty Boy" Floyd and Adam Richetti, both of whom paid with their lives. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book A Good Bunch of Men written by Danny R. Smith and published by Dickie Floyd Novels. This book was released on 2018-07-20 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dead prostitutes can seem like part of the landscape in South Los Angeles. What, then, could render two veteran homicide detectives speechless as they stand over their latest victim? Tightly-wound Dickie Jones and his smart and cocky partner, Matt
Download or read book Bonnie and Clyde A Love Story written by Bill Brooks and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2005-03 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: She preferred guys with an edge to them. Bad Boys, her mama called them. Then one night she met Clyde and knew her mama was right. If there was ever a bad boy, it was Clyde Chestnut Barrow. He had that look: those dark secretive eyes that never looked directly into yours. He had a pretty face and a smooth way of talking and she liked his silk shirt and the way he fit into it. He liked her too. They were destined to be star crossed lovers who blazed across the hot southwest in a time of drought and trouble. She wanted to be an actress and he wanted to rob banks. In an era that gave birth to the likes of Al Capone, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson--Bonnie and Clyde were to become America's version of Romeo and Juliet--with guns! Their love for each other was without rhyme or reason, their attraction and bond unbreakable. They vowed the only thing that would ever seperate them was a bullet. A vow the Texas Rangers hoped to make come true. Bonnie, the beautiful petite blond poet was Clyde's equal in every respect. She was his lover and partner, and was willing to die for her man. Clyde was tough and agile, a troubled soul of a man who loved only two things: bank robbing and Bonnie Parker. Whether behind the wheel of a fast-moving Ford V-8, or the sultry bedroom of a Texas motel, their love and lives were unparalleled in the annals of history. Theirs is more than just a story of a fast and furious short and violent life--theirs is a story of unshakable love and devotion few ever experience.
Download or read book The Lost City of Z written by David Grann and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-01-26 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon comes a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction that unravels the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century—the story of the legendary British explorer who ventured into the Amazon jungle in search of a fabled civilization and never returned. “Suspenseful…rollicking.” —The New York Times In 1925, Percy Fawcett went into the Amazon jungle, in search of a fabled civilization. He never returned. Over the years countless perished trying to find evidence of his party and the place he called “The Lost City of Z.” In this masterpiece, journalist David Grann interweaves the spellbinding stories of Fawcett’s quest for “Z” and his own journey into the deadly jungle. Look for David Grann’s new book, The Wager, coming in April 2023!
Download or read book Pretty Boy Floyd written by Larry McMurtry and published by Pocket Books. This book was released on 1994 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A country boy took a big step towards becoming a legend when he robs his first armored car.
Download or read book Sutton written by J.R. Moehringer and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Electrifying." --Booklist (starred) Willie Sutton was born in the Irish slums of Brooklyn in 1901, and he came of age at a time when banks were out of control. Sutton saw only one way out and only one way to win the girl of his dreams. So began the career of America's most successful bank robber. During three decades Sutton became so good at breaking into banks, the FBI put him on its first-ever Most Wanted List. But the public rooted for the criminal who never fired a shot, and when Sutton was finally caught for good, crowds at the jail chanted his name. In J.R. Moehringer's retelling, it was more than need or rage that drove Sutton. It was his first love. And when he finally walked free--a surprise pardon on Christmas Eve, 1969--he immediately set out to find her. "What Hilary Mantel did for Thomas Cromwell and Paula McLain for Hadley Hemingway . . . J.R. Moehringer now does for bank robber Willie Sutton." --Newsday "Thoroughly absorbing. . . . Filled with vibrant and colorful re-creations of not one but several times in the American past." --Kevin Baker, author of Strivers Row "[J.R. Moehringer] has found an historical subject equal to his vivid imagination, gimlet journalistic eye, and pitch-perfect ear for dialogue. By turns suspenseful, funny, romantic, and sad--in short, a book you won't be able to put down." --John Burnham Schwartz, author of Reservation Road and The Commoner
Download or read book The Wettest County in the World written by Matt Bondurant and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-12-29 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bondurant weaves a compelling tale of violence, desperation, and greed, as three brothers run moonshine in Virginia during prohibition, in this story that is based on a true story about the author's grandfather and two uncles.
