Research Catalog

The year of fear : Machine Gun Kelly and the manhunt that changed the nation / Joe Urschel.

Title

The year of fear : Machine Gun Kelly and the manhunt that changed the nation / Joe Urschel.

Author

Urschel, Joe

Publication

New York : Minotaur Books, 2015.
©2015

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Item details
Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Request in advance	HV6248.K414 U77 2015	Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xi, 290 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates; 25 cm

Summary

"It's 1933 and Prohibition has given rise to the American gangster--now infamous names like Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger. Bank robberies at gunpoint are commonplace and kidnapping for ransom is the scourge of a lawless nation. With local cops unauthorized to cross state lines in pursuit and no national police force, safety for kidnappers is just a short trip on back roads they know well from their bootlegging days. Gangster George "Machine Gun" Kelly and his wife, Kathryn, are some of the most celebrated criminals of the Great Depression. With gin-running operations facing extinction and bank vaults with dwindling stores of cash, Kelly sets his sights on the easy-money racket of kidnapping. His target: rich oilman, Charles Urschel.Enter J. Edgar Hoover, a desperate Justice Department bureaucrat who badly needs a successful prosecution to impress the new administration and save his job. Hoover's agents are given the sole authority to chase kidnappers across state lines and when Kelly bungles the snatch job, Hoover senses his big opportunity. What follows is a thrilling 20,000 mile chase over the back roads of Depression-era America, crossing 16 state lines, and generating headlines across America along the way--a historical mystery/thriller for the ages.Joe Urschel's The Year of Fear is a thrilling true crime story of gangsters and lawmen and how an obscure federal bureaucrat used this now legendary kidnapping case to launch the FBI"--

Subject

Genre/Form

Biographies
True crime stories
History
Biographies.
History.
True crime stories.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (pages [271]-274) and index.

Processing Action (note)

committed to retain

Contents

George and Kathryn go to work -- A massacre in Kansas City -- The Kidnapping Scourge -- The Abduction -- Welcome to Paradise -- The Delivery -- The Manhunt -- Catching Kelly -- The Kellys' Trial -- The G-men Take the Spotlight -- Alcatraz and the "Irredeemables."

ISBN

9781250020796
1250020794
9781250020802 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

^^2015022093

OCLC

898529435
SCSB-12229410

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library