"In the early 1930's, America was thrilled and terrorized by John Dillinger, a desperado, a bank robber, a bad man no jail could hold. His reputation grew until he was named the country's first public enemy #1, hunted by virtually every cop in America. Operating during a time of great hardship, Dillinger became a mythic figure who fought authority and won the hearts of many ordinary Americans, particularly those hardest hit by the Great Depression. Just 14 months after Dillinger set out on his bank-robbing spree, it was over. The desperado met his match in J. Edgar Hoover, who used the outlaw's celebrity to burnish his own reputation and that of his new national law enforcement agency, the FBI. With Dillinger's bloddy demise, Hoover made sure that the moral of the gangster's tale was crime doesn't pay."--Container.