Customer Reviews

The Dillinger Dossier

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This book (an expanded and updated version of Nash's earlier "Dillinger: Dead or Alive") tells a fascinating tale and (as is always the case with Nash) tells it well. Was John Dillinger really gunned down at the Biograph Theatre in July, 1934, or was the dead man a double set up to take the fall? At first, the idea that Dillinger might have survived the Biograph shooting for several decades seems right up there with alien abductions, but Nash makes an excellent case. And with what we now know about Hoover's FBI, the idea that the Bureau would have covered up the debacle for decades to avoid criticism is hardly shocking -- in fact, it's pretty hard to believe that Hoover would *not* have covered it up.

Even if you don't buy Nash's central hypothesis, the book is a great read, full of colorful period detail. If you have any interest in Dillinger or the early history of the FBI, buy it.

Crime historian Jay Robert Nash has gotten a lot of guff for this book. The Chicago author stepped on a lot of toes getting down to what really happen to John Dillinger. As it turned out, Dillinger wasn't really killed leaving a Chicago Movie Theater and Nash lays out the reasons why and they are most convincing, especially the lack of Dillinger's known scars, difference of eye color, height and weight between Dillinger and the dead man, a gangster wannabe named James Lawrence. Brothel owner Anna Sage and Martin Zarkovich, an East Chicago police detective, who later became Chief of Police for East Chicago, Indiana, set up Lawrence to help get the heavy FBI presence out of his territory. Zarkovich was my mother's sister's uncle in law. Nash has been accused of being a shoddy historian, but having read most of his books, I find him brilliantly honest and as with most brilliant people, they arouse jealousy among the less talented.

This book is largely a reprint of Nash's wildly implausible 1970 book, Dillinger: Dead or Alive?, though coauthor Ron Offen is left out of the credits this time. The "evidence" for Dillinger's survival as presented in Nash's first book was based mainly on erroneous notations in Dillinger's long missing autopsy report and has been largely rebutted by more serious Dillinger researchers, notably Girardin and Helmer in Dillinger: The Untold Story. New "evidence" introduced by Nash in The Dillinger Dossier consists mostly of the revelations of "Blackie" Audett, an obscure ex-con and author of a volume of tall tales entitled Rap Sheet. Audett, now deceased, claimed to have known every major outlaw of the 30s, to have been involved in nearly every crime of the period, and to have aided John Dillinger in his permanent escape from justice. This alleged eyewitness to the Kansas City Massacre, who was in Leavenworth at the time, seems to have found a willing dupe in Nash but Audett's word doesn't hold a candle to the three known sets of postmortem fingerprints taken from the dead man by the FBI. While scarred by acid, the prints remained easily identifiable as Dillinger's. This book originally came with a mail order offer of Nash's taped interviews of Audett. It seems that few, if any, who ordered the tape ever received it and at least some got a refund check, with no further explanation. The late Joe Pinkston, author of Dillinger, A Short and Violent Life, owner of the John Dillinger Historical Museum and himself a trained lie detector examiner, once suggested to this reviewer that possibly Nash, or his publisher, realized that the tape could be tested with a PSE (Psychological Stress Evaluator) which would indicate Audett was lying, and removed the tape offer for this reason. At any rate, The Dillinger Dossier, like most of Nash's books, is one best avoided by serious historians but perfect for conspiracy freaks and anyone who appreciates a good joke.

An extremely well crafted piece of investigating. How journalist use to do things in America. I read both DILLINGER: DEAD OR ALIVE? And DILLINGER DOSSIER. The later is an expanded and updated version of the former. I borrowed both from the interlibrary loan system. Loved the work so much I hunted down a used copy of DILLINGER DOSSIER for my home library. (Found one on Amazon)
Nash lays everything out for the reader to decide. I think he is a bit conservative in his theories at times. This tale has as many layers as an onion and it's plain to see something very strange indeed occured at The BIOGRAPH, and Dillingers death just did not happen as reported by the FBI. The book shows how inept the FBI was at the time (in those early days of the Depression), and how they bungled one Dillinger mission after another. How they jumped at any chance--no matter how silly sounding--to get J.D.
He always left the Feds in the rear trying to explain the mistaken deaths and injuries caused by Law Enforcements slip-shod methods and carelessness. The reader can see how the Chicago Mob, and Dillinger worked in tandem to formulate Dillingers dropping off the grid. All told through interviews with actual participants in the events still alive in the late 1960's.
As a person born and raised in Chicago I really loved this book. Dillinger was our areas version of Robin Hood, Jesse James or Butch Cassidy. As a teenager in the 1960's I often heard the Dillinger name come up in conversations from the oldsters. Probably not unlike the Missourians speaking of Jesse James a century before.
Bottom line: The Feds may have screwed up, killed the wrong guy (for whatever reason) and didn't even try to cover it. All they say is CASE CLOSED. Its over. (I guess they did kill Dillinger--metaphorically at least. Nobody saw J.D. again in Chicago after July, 22, 1934 did they?)
A very interesting believe it or not book, and will keep you up past your bedtime reading it.

The book arrived in excellent condition. I had owned this book before and wanted a second copy. Anyone who is interested in John Dillinger and/or the bank robbers, kidnappers and thieves of 1930s America should read this book. Additionally, anyone who is interested in conspiracies or the power of the FBI should read it as well.

.... is a phenomenal researcher. In "Dillinger: Dead or Alive?" he clearly states his own skepticism, and delves deeper and deeper ....

If nothing else seemed factual - and I mean NOTHING else - the eye color cinched it for me. Mr. Nash was banging against every wall imaginable to have ever written his original "D:DOA?" - I credit him as a genius.
Steve