Customer Reviews

John Dillinger: The Life and Death of America's First Celebrity Criminal

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While a good, if annoying read (see details below) that narrates the Dillinger story capably, Matera's book is plagued with problems, from it's main thesis to word usage errors. His conclusions are half-right at best -- police were already stocking machine guns and body armor (Dillinger robbed them, remember?), banks were already beefing up security, and SWAT teams were not created until decades later. Dillinger can only be considered "America's first clebrity criminal" by people who have never heard of Jesse James or Al Capone. While he was the most famous outlaw of the era, it was the presence of so many gangs (and the attendant press coverage) that did more for changes in law enforcement and new federal laws covering what had previously been local offenses.

On to real errors. On p. 128 Dillinger meets with a police snitch at 222 State St. (The Loop), then went around the corner to a bar on Lawrence Ave., which is actually 50-plus blocks north of the 200 block of State! Dillinger was not taken by cops on "commercial jets," as they did not exist in 1934. John's niece Mary is described (p. 126) as a student at Bulter U. and later as "an aspiring beauty school grad" (p. 250); Butler is a beauty school?

Finally usage errors here are maddening. John and Pierpont were "trapped by providential thinking." Huh? It's PROVINCIAL! Here's another doozy: "Anna's underhanded activities were particularly cold-blooded in light of her behavior in the proceeding months. It's supposed to be "proceeding" as in coming before July 1934, not "proceeding" (continuing), as John was no longer alive in the proceeding months. And the hot temperature was not the feds' "alley," it was their ally. OK, one more (p. 132): "The police was..." Who let that through?

Too picky? No. Matera should have given his manuscript a cleaner line-by-line scrub before sending it in, and there is no excuse for such sloppy editing from a professional publishing house.

His breezy writing style may work for some readers, but I find his use of modern slang ill-fitting in a story set in the 1930s. In sum Girardin and Hellmer's "Dillinger" and Burrough's "Public Enemies" are much better books on the subject.

"John Dillinger" by Dary Matera proved to be the page-turner I hoped it would be when I purchased it purely on impulse.

Matera gives brief attention to the early life of America's favorite Depression-era desperado, noting the death of his mother when Johnny was a three-year-old and his early forays into small-time crime. Sentenced to a "whopping ten-to-twenty" in the penitentiary for his youthful crimes in 1924, Dillinger spent nine years in the pen before being granted clemency by Indiania Governor Paul V. McNutt in May 1933.

In the fourteen remaining months of his life, Dillinger engaged in a crime spree, robbing banks, raiding police stations for weapons, and staging jail breaks to become America's most colorful prince of thieves and Public Enemy Number One. The narrative is swept along with one shoot-out and getaway after another, and the cast of characters includes all the gangsters I was fascinated with as a boy -- Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, Homer Van Meter, Alvin Karpis, and a dozen others in Dillinger's changing gang of thugs.

The gun molls play their part and the often-bumbling lawmen, with J. Edgar Hoover at the head of the newly-formed FBI. There was a tender side to Dillinger, shown to his family and girlfriends, his generosity with the needy, and a fierce sense of loyalty to his gang members, for whom he would risk his life to insure their freedom.

Demonstrably well researched, the book has few flaws other than an occasional factual slip-up and a few niggling errors of syntax that annoyed me. But it is definitely a rip roaring read!

This book is definitely worth checking out. After reading it I'm not as impressed as I was at first glance but it's pretty good. There is a great amount of new information here, including some bank jobs heretofore unreported in earlier Dillinger books, and some previously unpublished photos. The research was done mainly by the late Joe Pinkston and his collaborator Tom Smusyn, both wonderful guys and both well known in historical crime circles as the ultimate authorities on America's first Public Enemy Number One, and the book is a rewritten condensation of a 1,000-plus page manuscript completed by Pinkston shortly before his death. I'm glad the book was put out as least a tribute to Joe Pinkston's work but don't especially care for Matera's hipster writing style--this is the first I've ever heard of Dillinger being popularly called "The Jackrabbit"--and a number of factual errors creep into the narrative as well, errors that Pinkston and Smusyn would never have made. I have serious doubts that Matera ever left Arizona while writing this book. Greencastle, Illinois? If Matera can prove Doc Moran's body was pulled off a Canadian lake shore in 1935 I'll eat my hat. The FBI sure didn't know about this even years later and I doubt that it comes from Joe Pinkston either. And the subtitle: "America's First Celebrity Criminal"--has Matera never heard of Al Capone? Or Jesse James? Don't get me wrong. This is a good book and belongs in the library of any Dillingerphile, if only for the impeccable research of Pinkston and Smusyn. But it's not the definitive account it could have been--or should have been.

In the most documented account of the "Little Bohemia" FBI Mea Culpa, be right there when the story is told minute by minute and with unbelievable detail. The description of the cars and firearms involved is a saga into itself. I had to visit the little town of Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin and walk where the players walked and see the actual bullet holes. We also get an insight into Baby Face Nelson and his "take no prisoners' persona. This book will give you goose bumps but you cannot put it down.

Very well written, meticulous in detail. This is one of the best accounts of one of the most notorious American criminals of all time. Gives the background, events and experiences that shaped this contradictory personality into the hardened criminal that he eventually became.
Definitely a book to read even if you know much about this period in American history.

Actually the book was written about John Dillinger, not Al Capone or Jesse James. I feel the former Joe Pinkston would have been proud that his son picked out such a well-known author to write this manuscript.

Matera is a renown author of 12 books and his subjects have been featured on 20/20, 60 Minutes, 48 Hours, Primetime Live, Larry King Live, Nightline, Expose, Donahue, Oprah, Regis and Kathy Lee, Good Morning America, A Current Affair, Inside Edition, The E True Hollywood Story, Unsolved Mysteries, Hollywood Insider, PM Magazine and Personalities among others.

They have been reviewed and featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Atlanta Journal/Constitution, The Miami Herald, Newsweek, Time, People magazine, Life, Satellite Orbit, Editor & Publisher, The American Bar Journal, The Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Tribune Newspapers and many additional newspapers and magazines.

His first book ARE YOU LONESOME TONIGHT? (Random House/Villard) was a New York Times best seller in both hardcover (1987) and paperback (1988, Berkley). More than a million copies were printed world wide.

I feel author Dary Matera did an excellent job on this book as he has several other books he has written. Lots of new information, especially on Dillinger's early years. This book is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Reviewed by 7ony Stewart, author
Dillinger, The Hidden Truth

This new book about the life & crimes of John Dillinger has some new insight into some previously unknown bank jobs by the Dillinger gang, with some new photographs. There are many books on Johnnie boy and his gang and although this book is lengthy (over 400 pages), I think it would be a worthwhile addition to anyone's library. I would recommend this book to those interested in the "Dillinger Days."

The other reviewers are kinder than I--I got 50 pages in before I gave up on the book, annoyed by the author's factual errors; odd attempts at humor, such as making a pun based on a getaway driver's name, Parker; contemporary slang, such as stating that Dillinger's gun was "righteous heat;" and down right peculiar observations, such as calling a Kroger grocery store "a precursor to K-Mart." There are so many other books on Dillinger that there is no need to wade through this one.

I was really looking forward to reading this book but I am very disappointed after doing so. Not only is the book riddled with errors, but the writing style is childish, to put it mildly, and very irritating. I find it hard to believe that Matera has actually written other books! Most annoying is Matera's constant use of clichés. If a high school freshman had written this book as a term paper, it would come back to him marked up with so much red that you wouldn't be able to see what he had written. On top of that, Matera's incorrect use of words is actually pathetic and his attempt to sound "hip" is not only corny but it's also not appropriate for the time period he is describing. The book is also loaded with so many factual errors that it loses all credibility.

I will try an experiment to prove this point. I am going to randomly open the book and see what I come up with.....O.K.- on page 46, Matera mentions a Kroger store robbed by Dillinger and his gang. Matera says that Kroger was a department store and that it was the precursor to K-Mart. Not so! Kroger IS a grocery store and it has absolutely nothing to do with K-Mart. In fact, a quick check of the facts reveals that Kroger is 125 years old and it is the third largest retailer in the United States after Walmart and Home Depot. It still exists and is thriving. Not only is it NOT a precursor to K-Mart, but it isn't even in the same business!

Every page filled with such errors. I really got a kick out of the quotes supposedly made by Dillinger's father. If you have seen old film clips of Dillinger's father, you know that he was a simple, uneducated farmer. But the quotes attributed to him by Matera sound as if they were made by a PhD!

Apparently, the publishers never bothered to even proof-read this book because it is filled with spelling errors, grammatical errors, and punctuation errors. That may not matter to some readers but it indicates a carelessness that permeates this book. This is an example of very poor writing. I cannot recommend this book. There are much better books on the subject.

When I climbed into "John Dillinger's getaway car," a 1933 Hudson Terraplane, and ripped off a piece of the torn leather back seat, I had no idea just how famous, or infamous, Dillinger really was. Fortunately for me, I was but a child, Dillinger was recently dead, and his car was on display at a local fair which was passing through town. I still have that small piece of leather, so, as you might imagine, I've always had an interest in John Dillinger, even though I've never taken the trouble to read much about him.

Prior to reading this book, about all I knew was that Dillinger was a bank robber and that he was gunned down in front of the Biograph Theater in Chicago thanks to the mysterious "lady in red," who, as it turns out, wasn't even wearing red. But, as you will find by reading this book, John Dillinger was more than a simple bank robber and his brief career as America's "Public Enemy #1" involved much more than mere bank robbery. As a matter of fact, his adventures and misadventures were so surprising and interesting, and at times death defying, that, although I already knew the outcome, I found myself rooting for John to pull it off one last time and somehow escape the long arm of the law. But of course, that was not to be.

I really enjoyed this book, once it got rolling, i.e., when Dillinger was paroled after ten years in prison and began the career which made him famous throughout the world and which helped J. Edgar Hoover create the FBI. My only complaint about the book, and it's a small one, is that in the beginning I came feel that the author was overdoing it. By that I mean that he was attempting to convince his readers of the book's authenticity by stating the name and history of every person that Dillinger ever knew and every street address at which he had ever visited or lived. Once the story got moving, however, there was no putting the book down. I only wish it had had a slightly happier ending, but, then, I sat in Dillinger's getaway car.