The Dillinger Days (Paperback)

by John Toland (Author) "IT WAS MAY 20, 1933..." (more)
Key Phrases: bandit car, head teller, two bartenders, Van Meter, Little Bohemia, John Dillinger (more...)

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Product Description

For thirteen violent months in the 1930s, John Dillinger and his gang swept through the Midwest. The criminals of the Depression robbed almost at will (the Indiana State Police had only 41 members, including clerks and typists). Dillinger's daring escapes-single-handed at Crown Point jail or through the withering machine gun fire of FBI agents at Little Bohemia Lodge-and his countless bank robberies excited the imagination of a despondent country. He eluded the lawmen of a half-dozen states and the growing power of the FBI, earning him the dubious honor of Public Enemy Number One and captivating Americans to the present day. His brief but significant career is vividly chronicled here in extraordinary detail, as is the entire outlaw era of Baby Face Nelson, Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker, and Machine Gun Kelly. The author conducted hundreds of interviews; his research took him through thirty-four states, into the cells where Dillinger was confined, and into every bank he robbed. The Dillinger Days is the inside account of a desperate and determined war between the law and the lawless, a struggle that did not end until a unique set of circumstances led to Dillinger's bloody death outside a Chicago movie house.

From the Publisher
10 1.5-hour cassettes --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 382 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (March 21, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306806266
• ISBN-13: 978-0306806261
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #138,130 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Revisiting a Standard Text, July 18, 2001

By	Rick "Mad Dog" Mattix (Iowa) - See all my reviews

When first published in 1963, Toland's The Dillinger Days seemed to be the definitive work on the public enemy era, as both a biography of John Dillinger and as a sweeping chronicle of the whole Midwest Depression crime wave, also including "Pretty Boy" Floyd, "Baby Face" Nelson, the Barker-Karpis gang, "Machine Gun" Kelly and Clyde Barrow. Indeed, Toland may even be credited with launching a revival of interest in the Barrow gang. The scattered passages on the Barrows, whose fleeting fame was largely forgotten outside Texas by 1963, was largely the inspiration for the later movie Bonnie and Clyde. Toland's main subject here was of course Dillinger and the sections on the other gangs are scantier and often erroneous. Errors also appear in the Dillinger chapters. The "second Dillinger gang" was really "Baby Face" Nelson's, which Dillinger joined after the Crown Point escape, the exact details of which will never be known with full certainty though subsequent research--by Girardin and Helmer, Joe Pinkston and others--indicates that Toland got it wrong. The "Dillinger" letter to Henry Ford was long ago proven a forgery. As a straight Dillinger biography, Toland's book is actually far less detailed and accurate than the slimmer work, nearly contemporary with his own, Dillinger: A Short and Violent Life by Robert Cromie and Joe Pinkston. Still, as a history of the Depression crime wave, it was about the best volume available in 1963. Subsequent research has turned up much new information in recent years. Other authors have corrected Toland's errors. But the fact remains that Toland's work inspired a great deal of this research. Many of us gangster buffs got our start with Toland's book, so a lot of the new information available today probably wouldn't have surfaced without it. And for all its flaws, Toland's book remains a useful starting point for anyone interested in the gangster era--the Dillinger days.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Roaring Thirties!, March 21, 2002

By	Bob Jarvis (San Salvador, El Salvador.) - See all my reviews

I can't comment on the veracity of Tolands account, so this review deals with the book's impact on someone reading about the 30's American Gangster era for the first time. The book is fast & furious. It has a style & pace that seems totally in sync' with the wild events & full-blooded characters involved. Dillinger & Company come alive here. The accounts were thrilling, detailed & totally enjoyable. Although the author is commendably non-judgemental, not unsurprisingly, Dillinger comes over as the Class-Act of the the mobs. Whilst he certanly had a style, I use the word "class" with some reservation! The rest were just out & out villians! I was pleased to see the lawmen get a fair share of the action. The dedication & bravery of these men is in the most part commendable & a credit to their profession. The thought of facing up to a gang, including such vicious characters as Baby Face Nelson & Homer Van Meter, armed to the teeth with automatic weapons, is chilling indeed. The bank escapes give the reader a good feel of the times. It seemed that a five minute chase from any city centre bank would find the fugitives deep inside a maze of unmade roads. An almost total lack of communication between law enforcers, plus State Line jusridiction restrictions made the already fraught pursuit of these characters difficult indeed. I thoroughly enjoyed the book & recommend it very highly. I also agree that it is a good "appetite whetter" for more books of similar genre.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent account of the period when gangsters wrote history, April 7, 1999

By A Customer

In the late sixties, when the popularity of "Bonnie and Clyde" at the box office ushered in a renewed interest in the period, this book was a compelling, concise account of a period when some of history's most ruthless criminals became cult heroes. From Machine Gun Kelley and John Dillinger to the Barrows and Pretty Boy Floyd, the Depression spawned its own brand of anti-heroes, placing them forever in a crude infamy of greed and murder. Toland is an excellent storyteller of the War era and plies his trade to new levels in this book. A highly recommended read to anyone interested in the period or exploits of some of American history's criminal element.