Machine Gun Kelly's Last Stand
George Kelly, a flamboyant crook during the Depression era, was one of the reasons the federal government became involved in criminal investigation, hitherto largely a local task. The FBI reaped favorable publicity in the kidnapping case that ended Kelly's life on the lam in 1933--"Don't shoot, G-men," Kelly's purported plea when arrested, coined a phrase--but cut corners in its zeal, perhaps unsurprising in an era less punctilious about legal niceties. Author Hamilton dramatizes the central facts of the case in detail redolent of the period. The victim, Oklahoma City oil magnate Charles Urschel, was clapped into a lonely, windblown farmstead on the high Texas plain. Urschel was an unusually keen observer of his surroundings and captors, which he memorized while a friend chugged by steam train to Kansas City to deliver the ransom. Hamilton's account of the entire episode--three months from crime to sentence--certainly offers a contrast with the contemporary pace of justice. Entertainment for true-crime buffs.Gilbert TaylorCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved