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by: Dary Matera  List Price: $26.00 Price: $9.34 You Save: $16.66 (64%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.1523092 EAN: 9780786713547 ISBN: 0786713542 Label: Da Capo Press Manufacturer: Da Capo Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 416 Publication Date: April 18, 2004 Publisher: Da Capo Press Studio: Da Capo Press Related Items:
Editorial Review: Product Description: Best-selling author Dary Matera sets the Dillinger record straight, seventy years after the outlaw's death. John Dillinger is an adrenaline-fueled narrative that reignites America's fascination with the suave but deadly desperado who was the FBI's first "Public Enemy." Dubbed "The Jackrabbit" because of the way he leaped over bank cages and railings, Dillinger and his bank-robbing gang cut a criminal swath yet to be equaled. They became so famous in the 1930s that throngs of excited spectators would block the route to their getaway cars. When caught, Dillinger staged the most harrowing prison escapes imaginable—only to finally be betrayed by the infamous "Lady in Red." John Dillinger brings to light new information, including bank robberies never before reported; detailed plans for major crimes that Dillinger nearly implemented; the revelation that the "Lady in Red" was actually a police plant; and the startling fact that John Dillinger was summarily executed by rogue FBI agents being manipulated by East Chicago detectives desperate to cover up widespread police corruption. With access to thousands of detailed accounts, and pages of telling photographs, Matera's definitive book describes every robbery, shoot-out, and prison escape as though he choreographed them himself. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Not the best Dillinger book but not the worst.Of the many books on Dillinger this one belongs in the upper half but does have its flaws. If anyone reading about Dillinger for the first time thinks his nickname was the "Jackrabbit"-this book is to blame, only a very few times was this name put to him and it was more of a descriptive word explaning his jumping over tellers stations. There are many worse books on Dillinger but there are a few that are better. Rating:  - Very disappointing. Writing is Freshman high school level.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. ... Read More Rating:  - Even more interesting than I thought it would beWhen 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 ... Read More Rating:  - A Rip Roaring Read"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 ... Read More Rating: - too clever for its own goodThe 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. 
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