Accounts of bank-robberies and other exploits of outlaws and desperadoes are usually supposed to belong to the criminal-news columns of the daily paper and to the writer of sensational literature. When the robber is the only or the principal actor in the scene, and his prowess or brutality the only feature worth mentioning, the less said of it the better. But when a great crime is the occasion of great heroism, courage, fidelity, intrepid resistance, and the triumph of virtue over violence, then there is a story worth telling, and a lesson worth learning. It is such a story that is unfolded in the following pages. The attempted robbery of the Northfield bank, the refusal of Mr. Heywood to open the safe, his brutal murder by the baffled robber, the brave and successful fight made by the citizens, the flight, pursuit and capture of the bandits,Ñall this was familiar enough to the whole nation eighteen years ago. But such events easily pass from the recollection of men; while to a generation of young people now growing up it has never been known. To some of us it has seemed, therefore, that the time has come to tell the story again, not from the sensational point of view, but from that of heroism and loyalty to duty. The aim of the author has been to give a correct account of the facts involved, and leave them to convey their own lesson and inspiration. Revolting details have been omitted. All important statements are made upon the authority of eye-witnesses, where such testimony was accessible, and in most cases by the collation of a number of independent accounts.

Ted and Noelle's only clue to catch a bank robber is a sweaty handkerchief. They also have to prove their abilities to the new police chief.

No crime is as synonymous with America as bank robbery. Though the number of bank robberies nationwide has declined, bank robbery continues to captivate the public and jeopardize the safety of banks and their employees. In A History of Heists, Jerry Clark and Ed Palattella explore how bank robbers have influenced American culture as much as they have reflected it. Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Willie Sutton, and Patty Hearst are among the most famous figures in the history of crime in the United States. Jesse James used his training as a Confederate guerrilla to make bank robbery a political act. John Dillinger capitalized on the public’s scorn of banks during the Great Depression and became America’s first Public Enemy Number One. When she held up a bank with the leftist Symbionese Liberation Army, Patty Hearst fueled the country’s social unrest. Jerry Clark and Ed Palattella delve into the backgrounds and motivations of the robbers, and explore how they are as complex as the nation whose banks they have plundered. But as much as the story of bank robbery in America focuses on the thieves, it is also a story of those who investigate the heists. As bank robbers became more sophisticated, so did the police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other law enforcement agencies. This captivating history showshow bank robbery shaped the modern FBI, and how it continues to cultivate America’s fascination with the noble outlaw: bandits seen, rightly or wrongly, as battling unjust authority.

"With the style and pacing of a good novel...should become a standard in the genre."—Publishers Weekly FBI Special Agent William J. Rehder, the man CBS News once described as "America's secret weapon in the war against bank robbers," chronicles the lives and crimes of bank robbers in today's Los Angeles who are as colorful and exciting as the legends of long ago. The mild-mannered antiques dealer who robbed more banks than anyone else in history. The modern Fagin who took a page out of Dickens and had children rob banks for him. The misfit bodybuilders who used a movie as a blueprint for a spree of violent robberies. In a fast-paced, hard-edged style that reads like a novel, Where the Money Is carries us through these stories and more—all within a pistol shot of Hollywood, all true-life tales as vivid as anything on the big screen.

'Raw, poetic and compulsively readable ... I can't wait to buy a copy for everyone I know.' Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help The summer she turned thirteen, Molly Brodak's father was arrested for robbing eleven banks. In time, the image she held of him would unravel further, as more and more unexpected facets of his personality came to light. Bandit is her attempt to discover what, exactly, is left, when the most fundamental relationship of your life turns out to have been built on falsehoods. It is also a scrupulously honest account of learning how to trust again, and to rebuild the very idea of family from scratch. Refusing to fence off the trickier sides of her father's character, Brodak tries to find, through crystalline, spellbinding prose, a version of him that does not rely on the easy answers but allows him to be: an unknowable and incomprehensible whole – who is also her father. Unforgettable, moving, and utterly relatable, Bandit is a story of the unpredictable complexity of family.