The Year of Fear: Machine Gun Kelly and the Manhunt that Changed the Nation

Urschel, the executive director of the National Law Enforcement Museum, overcomes some early stumbles to produce a true crime page-turner about George “Machine Gun” Kelly, a legendary Depression-era criminal man who is remembered—unjustifiably, according to the author—as “one of the most notorious hoodlums who terrorized the Midwest.” The repercussions of Kelly’s kidnapping of Oklahoma oilman Charles Urschel (not a relative of the author) in 1933 validate the bold claim made in the book’s subtitle. The author effectively traces how Charles Urschel’s wife’s immediate call to a newly established federal hotline led to young J. Edgar Hoover’s most successful investigation, and the birth of the FBI. Urschel makes clear how much of that success in the search for Kelly and his cohorts was due to the victim’s incredible sangfroid while a captive and his remarkable memory for details, including the distances between buildings on the farm where he was held. There are some drawbacks—an initial tendency to dramatize events, the absence of detailed sourcing of information—but those who enjoyed Bryan Burroughs’s more comprehensive Public Enemies (2004) will still find this focus on one colorful character enjoyable. [em]Agent: Wayne Kabak, WSK Management. (Sept.) [/em]