44. Public Enemy Number One: The Alvin Karpis story by with Bill Trent

I found this next to the find of the decade (possibly the century), the Willie Sutton book.  It turns out that this is also a pretty sweet little gem.  It's a Canadian book that grew out of a long article in Weekend magazine (which I think I read quite often as a kid, when it did turn up in our home).  Karpis himself was technically Canadian, having been born in Montreal (and sent back there briefly in 69 when he finally got out of jail), though he spent most of his life in the States (and his excessive criminal behaviour and use of firearms was certainly more American than Canadian).  It has an excellent cover.  I don't know if Westlake read it, but it has a very similar ethos to Where the Money Was.  It is interesting that neither of them mention each other in their books.  They were doing crimes around the same time and Karpis worked and crossed paths with a lot of famous criminals from this period.  Perhaps it was a regional thing, as Karpis worked mainly in the midwest.

What struck me about this book was how regional the United States was in the 1930's.  It seemed you really could drive for a few days a couple states over after robbing a bank and the cops and FBI did not have a way of tracking you or communicating quickly enough so that you could then rob a bank in the next state.  Eventually, it all did catch up with him.  His capture spelled the end of the wild Depression-era criminals.  This book covers his childhood briefly but mostly deals with the period of his life as a criminal.  We really don't learn at all what his 35 years in prison (the longest serving inmate in Alcatraz) were like and the narrative sort of jumps around.  It makes it less rich than Sutton's biography, though perhaps even more wild.  Similar to Sutton, Karpis was methodical and liked to plan, but he really took some crazy risks and had some bonkers shootouts compared to Sutton.  

What stood out for me in the book is his critique of the FBI and particularly J. Edgar Hoover.  We all know he was a scumbag today, but when the book was published in 1970, it was probably an eye-opener for people to learn that he totally lied about arresting Karpis (Hoover claimed he arrested him in his car, stopping Karpis from reaching for a rifle in the back seat; Karpis said Hoover only came out after many other G-men had him surrounded and it is a fact that he was in a two-seater with no backseat).  Hoover also spread the story about Ma Barker (who was the mother of Freddie Barker, Karpis' partner in the Karpis-Barker Gang) being this evil old lady mastermind. Karpis (and others since) shredded that lie used to justify gunning down an old lady, showing that while she was generally aware her sons were criminals, she was mostly kept in the dark and basically a simple hillbilly woman.

Come on.  Cover painting by Andy Donato