America's Dumbest Criminals [Hardcover]

Daniel Butler (Author), Alan Ray (Author), Leland Gregory (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 7, 2000

From the hit syndicated television show come 200 stories of fumbling felons, clumsy crooks, and ridiculous robbers—all the crimes are true, but the names have been changed to protect the stupid!

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

From the hit syndicated television show come 200 stories of fumbling felons, clumsy crooks, and ridiculous robbers?all the crimes are true, but the names have been changed to protect the stupid!

Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Gramercy (March 7, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517208903
• ISBN-13: 978-0517208908
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,393,271 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The way it really is, December 31, 2000

By 

Loren w Christensen (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: America's Dumbest Criminals: Wild and Weird Stories of Fumbling Felons, Clumsy Crooks, and Ridiculous Robbers (Paperback)

Any reader who says these tales are exaggerated or just war stories, obviously has never worked as a police officer.

There are a lot of dumb crooks out there, so many and so dumb that officers can't always feel proud of their easy arrests. What's amazing is that some of these dummies have survived in this world as long as they have.

While you will laugh out loud at the stories in this book, know that there are thousands of other dumb acts by criminals that could have been included and thousands more that have occurred since this book was written.

And while you laugh, keep the sobering thought in mind that many of these dumb crooks are dangerous.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Cop's view of stories, March 15, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (New Brunswick, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: America's Dumbest Criminals: Wild and Weird Stories of Fumbling Felons, Clumsy Crooks, and Ridiculous Robbers (Paperback)

Although many of the stories in this book are kinda funny, sometimes it reads too much like stories told by cops over beers. In one story (`The considerate criminal', p. 28), a guy goes to turn himself in, a busy and flustered officer tells him to go elsewhere or `come back at six', and the guy comes back at six! ha? How stupid to continue being cooperative when you originally plan to be cooperative! (?!) I didn't feel the authors were selective enough in picking the stories to include. This would have been less annoying if they didn't keep emphasizing the `dumb' aspect in their writeups. In many of the stories, if you didn't a priori believe the criminal stupid, you wouldn't decide so on the basis of the story. Certain story titles or/and author comments seemed `catty' rather than witty. Overall, given the potential of the concept, I found this book somewhat disappointing.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lame, March 30, 2006

By 

JMack (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: America's Dumbest Criminals: Wild and Weird Stories of Fumbling Felons, Clumsy Crooks, and Ridiculous Robbers (Paperback)

Perhaps the problem is in the presentation. Stories like these are better told by a witty reporter than printed in a book. While many of the stories were entertaining, I felt like many of them fell flat. Some of the stories were mere coincidences that lacked humor. Others just did not seem to fit under the title of the book. An undercover cop suckering a drug dealer is only amusing so many times.

I did gain some enjoyment from this book. Because many of the stories are based in the Chicago area, the proximity made that stories more relevant to me. Aside from these stories, I could have lived without this book.