Maryilyn reviews THE YEAR OF FEAR; MACHINE GUN KELLY AND THE MANHUNT THAT CHANGED AMERICA, by Joe Urschel, Minotaur Books, 2015, 304 p.
FBI and local police arrive in silence to Raynor Street, Memphis, Tennessee. Inside a house on this street was American’s most notorious criminal, Machine Gun Kelly, who the FBI had been chasing all over the Great Plains and the South. Machine Gun Kelly – real name George Barnes – was wanted for kidnapping. He and his wife were the FBI’s public enemies number one and two.
In The Year of Fear; Machine Gun Kelly and the Manhunt that Changed America, Joe Urschel paints a picture of America in the nineteen twenties and thirties, when criminals ruled by robbing banks and kidnapping. He accounts the rise of the then-newly formed FBI and their manhunt for Kelly and his wife, Katherine. Urschel writes a well-documented, exciting book of Kelly’s life – from his days of bootlegging in Memphis, to his death.