| Coming in Summer 2009, the major motion picture from Universal Studios
"ludicrously entertaining" (Time), Public Enemies is the story of the most spectacular crime wave in American history, the two-year battle between the young J. Edgar Hoover, his FBI and an assortment of criminals who became national icons: John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Barkers. In an epic feat of storytelling, Burrough reveals a web of interconnections within the vast American underworld and demonstrates how Hoover's G-men overcame their early fumbles to secure the FBI's rise to power.
Annotation:
Journalist Bryan Burrough, grandson of an FBI agent, details the spread of both a new type of crime and a new type of crime-catcher in the early 1930s. The socioeconomic conditions in the U.S. during the Great Depression facilitated the rise in flashy, bloody crime sprees across state lines, committed by limelight-seeking perpetrators such as Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Baby Face Nelson. Prior to this point, there was no organization with the jurisdiction to pursue interstate criminals. In response, J. Edgar Hoover was given the mandate to create one: the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which sought (and achieved) its own celebrity status as it hunted down America's most notorious criminals. PUBLIC ENEMIES was named a 2004 New York Times Notable Book.
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