The Dillinger Days, John Toland
The Dillinger Days, John Toland
List: $22.95 | Sale: $16.07
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The Dillinger Days

Author: John Toland

Narrator: Grover Gardner

Unabridged: 12 hr 27 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/14/2017


Synopsis

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, as the Indiana State Police had only forty-one members, including clerks and typists. Dillinger’s daring escapes at Crown Point jail or through the withering machine gun fire of FBI agents at Little Bohemia Lodge, along with 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. John Toland 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.

About John Toland

John Toland (1912–2004) was an award-winning American author and one of the most widely read military historians of the twentieth century. His most well-known work is perhaps The Rising Sun, winner of the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and the first book in English to tell the story of the Pacific War from the Japanese perspective. Although primarily an author of historical nonfiction, he also wrote novels, plays, and short stories. Among his published books were four New York Times bestsellers: But Not in Shame, The Last Hundred Days, Adolf Hitler, and Infamy.

About Grover Gardner

Grover Gardner is an award-winning narrator with over a thousand titles to his credit. Named one of the “Best Voices of the Century” and a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, he has won three prestigious Audie Awards.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Rachael

**3 stars** Hard to follow as an audiobook! 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). His brief but significant car......more

Goodreads review by Maggie

#ReadHarderChallenge #TrueCrime I grew up in Northern Indiana, and often asked to write reports of famous Hoosiers. While fame is usually something to attain, a life of crime is how Dillinger earned notoriety. Many of the towns he burglarized are less than 30 minutes from home, the state prison he es......more

Goodreads review by Bob

An excellent book on john Dillinger and the times he lived (and died!)Though Gangsters are not Toland's forte (he specialized on WW2) he did a great deal of research. He was able to interview many of the policemen, convicts, and women who knew Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, the Barker Gang, etc.. As th......more

Goodreads review by Jim

This is a very good account of Dillinger & others of his type from the 1920's - 30's. Baby Face Nelson, Bonnie & Clyde, Ma Barker & more have their careers & deaths described. There are some B&W pictures, too. I really got a feel for the era & why these people were both 'Public Enemies' & heroes.......more


Quotes

“America always has had a fondness for turning her criminal cases into happy legends, including John Dillinger…[But he] has just run into a roadblock in the form of a careful historian and terrier-like researcher named John Toland. In The Dillinger Days he is pinned down, likely forever, to no more than life size.” New York Times Book Review