I picked this up at a used book sale. Let's just say that the history books I've read on Dillinger don't support the character of Dillinger portrayed in the book. Homer Van Meter is portrayed as a sniveling coward.
It' funny because the story of Dillinger and his associates is so interesting when you just stick to the facts. Yeah I can see where you would want to put words in his mouth, but it could be so much more believable. Read Handsome Harry by James Carlos Blake instead.
I guess I shouldn't be so critical; I get the feeling from talking to Spanish that if she ever does write her version of Pierpont and Dillinger; Pierpont is going to come out as a repressed homosexual that Claudy had the hots for. Yes I know...the thing about it is that Dillinger is a great story on his own with just the hard facts that can be verified. So when you throw in other stuff that can't be verified and doesn't ring true with historical writing and such it's just icky. Yes, icky.
1 comment:
Yeah, I read this book long ago and it's crap. Went through at least three printings in the '60s and '70s from Monarch, Tower, and Belmont Tower paperbacks and should have been an embarrassment to Ovid Demaris, who later produced some respectable books on organized crime.
I can't see fictionalizing the story anyway. Joe Pinkston used to say, of the Hollywood movies produced on Dillinger, that the truth is more interesting than anything they could invent anyway.
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