Bonnie and Clyde may be the most notorious--and celebrated--outlaw couple America has ever known. This is the true story of how they got that way. Bonnie and Clyde: we've been on a first name basis with them for almost a hundred years. Immortalized in movies, songs, and pop culture references, they are remembered mostly for their storied romance and tragic deaths. But what was life really like for Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in the early 1930s? How did two dirt-poor teens from west Texas morph from vicious outlaws to legendary couple? And why? Award-winning author Karen Blumenthal devoted months to tracing the footsteps of Bonnie and Clyde, unearthing new information and debunking many persistent myths. The result is an impeccably researched, breathtaking nonfiction tale of love, car chases, kidnappings, and murder set against the backdrop of the Great Depression.

The author carefully gleaned materials from obscure locally published accounts, previously untapped court records, and archived but unpublished oral history accounts from some sixty victims, neighbors, relatives, and police who were involved in the exploits of the infamous duo. Using this information, he traces the violent path of Bonnie and Clyde until May 23, 1934, when they die in an ambush.

ABOUT THE BOOK As far as high-profile and fast-paced crimes go, you need look no further than Bonnie and Clyde: 1930s outlaws of the West. Born Bonnie Parker and Clyde “Champion” Barrow, respectively, they met in West Dallas when Bonnie was just 19. Her lover and husband, Roy Thornton, had just left her, and she fell in love with Mr. Clyde Barrow after being introduced by a friend. The famous romance and crime spree began, leaving a number of dead bodies, hijacked cars and bank robberies behind them. Bonnie and Clyde are the story of a young girl, devoted to her man, and sticking by his side through theft, murder, and finally premature death. MEET THE AUTHOR Megan Yarnall is a publicist and writer from Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She studied English, creative writing, and Italian at Dickinson College, and wrote her thesis on the connections between humans, their bodies, and language. She graduated in 2010 after spending four years organizing all of her college’s concerts. Megan has lived abroad in Italy and loves studying foreign language, linguistics, and writing. EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK Bonnie and Clyde’s whirlwind of crime began shortly before they met, when Clyde was in prison on account of theft and stolen goods. While the authorities had trouble convicting him on these accounts, he was transferred to Waco, Texas. In Waco, Clyde admitted to burglaries and car thefts, and was sentenced to two years in a state prison. Bonnie appeared on the scene and smothered a gun to Clyde during one of her daily visits to the prison. He and cellmate, William Turner, escaped prison along with another inmate, Emory Abernathy. When Clyde and Turner were recaptured in Middletown, Ohio and sent to the Texas State Penitentiary for 14 years, Bonnie and Clyde could only keep in touch through written letters. Fortunately for Bonnie and Clyde, Clyde was a mamma’s boy and after only two years in the penitentiary, his mother helped him get pardoned for his crimes and released. He walked out of prison on crutches after having another inmate cut off two of his toes to get out of work shortly before his pardon. Heading up to Massachusetts with Bonnie, Clyde looked for work in the North. Clyde’s work ended shortly when he went back to Bonnie in the South and they stole a car to keep moving. When Bonnie was caught, Clyde managed to escape and Bonnie spent a few long months alone in jail. Upon her release, she joined Clyde, who had kept busy by robbing an oil company as well as a jewelry store. The jewelry heist ended with the murder of John Bucher. Clyde and his friend and accomplice, Raymond Hamilton, became famous for this murder despite his denial of involvement, claiming he was in the car at the time it happened. Buy a copy to keep reading!

The story of Bonnie and Clyde--their love, their desperate killings, and their destruction in an explosion of gun fire--has fueled an American legend more than seventy years. But it is only with this book by the last surviving officer of the six who shot Bonnie and Clyde that the full story of their capture has been told. Ted Hinton's description of a secret, illegal police trap--hidden at the time from the press and public--is one of many revelations he draws from his intimate knowledge of the greatest manhunt of the 1930s. As a Dallas lawman he spent seventeen months, night and day, on the trail of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. He knew the notorious criminals personally from the seamy, hoodlum-ridden Dallas neighborhoods where they all grew up. He shared their code of toughness and genu­inely admired the extraordinary courage, skill, and loyalty that made Bonnie and Clyde stand out almost as heroes in the public imagination. Hinton admired them, but he never doubted that they had to be stopped. The long trail could only end in a shootout and their deaths-or his. Hinton's experiences as a green young sheriff's deputy and his compassion for outlaw lovers give Ambush an unusual dimension of humanity. Twenty-seven photographs underscore the book's vivid au­thenticity. And the author's meticulous research, using sources avail­able to no one else, makes this the definitive work of fact. The result is a powerful human drama of crime and the law: the real story of Bonnie and Clyde.

From the moment they first cut a swathe of crime across 1930s America, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker have been glamorised in print, on screen and in legend. The reality of their brief and catastrophic lives is very different -- and far more fascinating. Combining exhaustive research with surprising, newly discovered material, author Jeff Guinn tells the real story of two youngsters from a filthy Dallas slum who fell in love and then willingly traded their lives for a brief interlude of excitement and, more important, fame. Thanks in great part to surviving relatives of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, who provided Guinn with access to never-before-published family documents and photographs, this book reveals the truth behind the myth, told with cinematic sweep and unprecedented insight by a master storyteller.

The New York Times bestseller! “Frank Hamer, last of the old breed of Texas Rangers, has not fared well in history or popular culture. John Boessenecker now restores this incredible Ranger to his proper place alongside such fabled lawmen as Wyatt Earp and Eliot Ness. Here is a grand adventure story, told with grace and authority by a master historian of American law enforcement. Frank Hamer can rest easy as readers will finally learn the truth behind his amazing career, spanning the end of the Wild West through the bloody days of the gangsters.” --Paul Andrew Hutton, author of The Apache Wars To most Americans, Frank Hamer is known only as the “villain” of the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde. Now, in Texas Ranger, historian John Boessenecker sets out to restore Hamer’s good name and prove that he was, in fact, a classic American hero. From the horseback days of the Old West through the gangster days of the 1930s, Hamer stood on the front lines of some of the most important and exciting periods in American history. He participated in the Bandit War of 1915, survived the climactic gunfight in the last blood feud of the Old West, battled the Mexican Revolution’s spillover across the border, protected African Americans from lynch mobs and the Ku Klux Klan, and ran down gangsters, bootleggers, and Communists. When at last his career came to an end, it was only when he ran up against another legendary Texan: Lyndon B. Johnson. Written by one of the most acclaimed historians of the Old West, Texas Ranger is the first biography to tell the full story of this near-mythic lawman.

Set in a dirt-poor Texas landscape that spawned the star-crossed outlaws, this brilliantly researched and dramatically crafted true story opens with a murderous jail break and ends with the ambush and shoot-out that consigned their bullet-riddled bodies to the front seat of a hopped-up getaway car. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow's relationship was a toxic combination of infatuation blended with an instinct for going too far too fast. The poetry-writing, petite Bonnie and her diminutive, gun-crazy lover (she was four feet ten inches and he was barely nine stone) drove lawmen wild, slipping the noose every time. That is, until their infamy caught up with them in the famous ambush that literally blasted them away. Without glamourising the killers, or vilifying the cops, Bonnie and Clyde is alive with action and high-level entertainment and provides a fascinating picture of America's most famous outlaw couple and the culture that created them. Paul Schneider is the author of three critically acclaimed books, including a New York Times Book Review notable book. He spends his time between Florida and Massachusetts.