Johnnie D.
The Story of John Dillinger
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
John Dillinger's reign as Public Enemy No. 1 began in the summer of 1933, when he left the Commercial Bank of Daleville, Indiana, with $3,500 and a diamond ring belonging to the bank president's daughter. It was the depth of the Depression. Banks were closing everywhere, and millions of Americans were losing their life savings. To them, Dillinger's act made him a sort of hero, even a modern-day Robin Hood. Within the next year, he would go on to rob ten banks and break out of two jails, one of them theoretically "escape-proof."
Everything John Dillinger did, whether if was firing a tommy gun or relieving smitten bank tellers of the cash in their vaults, he did with style. This is his story, as told by Dillinger and those who knew him. Brought to life by Arthur Winfield Knight, the voices of the past emerge to vividly recount the renegade's story. Dillinger's associates included the likes of Harry Pierpont and George "Baby Face" Nelson. And the women in his life were as colorful as the boys in his gang, from the love of his life, Evelyn "Billie" Frechette, to Anna Sage, the "woman in red," who lured him into the FBI sting that resulted in his death on July 22, 1934.
Many a man fell on both sides in the effort to capture--and keep imprisoned--the incorrigible Johnnie D. Sixty-five years after Dillinger's death, Knight proves that this story of America's dashing Public Enemy is still the most charged and gutsy of the 1930s. Dillinger remains the enduring symbol of the gangster era, a gentleman on the wrong side of the law.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a grand array of voices, some 30 in all, Knight (The Secret Life of Jesse James) chronicles the final year in the life of Public Enemy #1 John Dillinger, gangster, bank robber and American folk hero. Dillinger, various devoted female allies, members of his gang (George "Baby Face" Nelson), Harry Pierpont, and family and friends who knew Dillinger before he became notorious give their alternating viewpoints. The narrative begins in the summer of 1933, when Dillinger, just out of prison after serving time for a bungled mugging, robs his first bank. The Great Depression is at its deepest and America's bankers are seizing homes and farms at an alarming rate, with little sympathy for those financially ruined. Dillinger, with his gallant, charming style, cuts a Robin Hood-like figure, condemning the ways the rich prey on the poor. He is portrayed as compassionate, good-hearted, kind to his family, generous and loving to his women friends and always ready to share his lot with those less fortunate. His companions Nelson and Pierpont, on the other hand, are depicted as cold-blooded killers. Dillinger robs 10 banks in all and makes daring escapes from two jails. The FBI bumble in their pursuit, and manage to kill several innocent people before 20 agents gun down the outlaw as he emerges from a Chicago theater. An illegal immigrant from Romania named Anna Sage, who operates a brothel, is the infamous Lady in Red who turns the outlaw in with hopes of having her deportation order quashed. Vivid voices illuminate the settings and time period as well as the interior lives of the characters, and Dillinger's exploits are deftly paced in alternately hard-boiled and lyrical prose.
