Detailed overview: http://realmofryan.blogspot.com/2009/... ( )

4083 Public Enemies America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34, by Bryan Burrough (read 19 Oct 2005) This 2004 book is a well-researched account of 1933-1934 criminals: Machine Gun Kelly, Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie & Clyde, the Barker-Karpis Gang, Baby Face Nelson, and John Dillinger. The accounts are kind of chronological, so the action slips from one character to another. The accounts of Bonnie & Clyde and John Dillinger are the most vivid and startling and so the most interesting. Often the FBI is shown not to do well--in the beginning of 1933 it was not an able organization, but it got better, tho J. Edgar Hoover never appears in a good light. I found most of the book fascinating and absorbing reading tho I am not sure study of this period is really relevant to anything one should know. ( )

While rather repetitive in its epsodic mini-sagas of various 1930s mobsters, the book nevertheless provides a fascinating insight into the early days of the FBI, and the remarkable toughness and resiliance of such legendary charaters as Bonnie and Clyde. ( )

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/1... ( )