PUBLIC ENEMIES

You know something’s wrong at the FBI when J. Edgar Hoover is answering the phones. Bryan Burrough’s PUBLIC ENEMIES contains 27 hours of remarkable facts about the bumbling origins of the FBI. In one instance, Hoover had to come up with a reason why his G-men killed Ma Barker, so he made up a tale that she was the brains of the gang and died with a machine gun in her hands. Burrough has equally revealing details about gangsters--for example, they stayed away from Southern banks because they were afraid of Southern prisons. Narrator Richard M. Davidson adds a swaggering James Cagney-like reading to this addictive story about a bygone period in U.S. history when “yegg men” used automobiles and state boundaries to become ruthless folk heroes. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE/JULY 05]