Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #40064 in Books
• Published on: 1983-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 250 pages

Customer Reviews

A Great Chunk of Americana
This book (an expanded and updated version of Nash's earlier "Dillinger: Dead or Alive") tells a fascinating tale and (as is always the case with Nash) tells it well. Was John Dillinger really gunned down at the Biograph Theatre in July, 1934, or was the dead man a double set up to take the fall? At first, the idea that Dillinger might have survived the Biograph shooting for several decades seems right up there with alien abductions, but Nash makes an excellent case. And with what we now know about Hoover's FBI, the idea that the Bureau would have covered up the debacle for decades to avoid criticism is hardly shocking -- in fact, it's pretty hard to believe that Hoover would *not* have covered it up.

Even if you don't buy Nash's central hypothesis, the book is a great read, full of colorful period detail. If you have any interest in Dillinger or the early history of the FBI, buy it.

Ridiculous Retread
This book is largely a reprint of Nash's wildly implausible 1970 book, Dillinger: Dead or Alive?, though coauthor Ron Offen is left out of the credits this time. The "evidence" for Dillinger's survival as presented in Nash's first book was based mainly on erroneous notations in Dillinger's long missing autopsy report and has been largely rebutted by more serious Dillinger researchers, notably Girardin and Helmer in Dillinger: The Untold Story. New "evidence" introduced by Nash in The Dillinger Dossier consists mostly of the revelations of "Blackie" Audett, an obscure ex-con and author of a volume of tall tales entitled Rap Sheet. Audett, now deceased, claimed to have known every major outlaw of the 30s, to have been involved in nearly every crime of the period, and to have aided John Dillinger in his permanent escape from justice. This alleged eyewitness to the Kansas City Massacre, who was in Leavenworth at the time, seems to have found a willing dupe in Nash but Audett's word doesn't hold a candle to the three known sets of postmortem fingerprints taken from the dead man by the FBI. While scarred by acid, the prints remained easily identifiable as Dillinger's. This book originally came with a mail order offer of Nash's taped interviews of Audett. It seems that few, if any, who ordered the tape ever received it and at least some got a refund check, with no further explanation. The late Joe Pinkston, author of Dillinger, A Short and Violent Life, owner of the John Dillinger Historical Museum and himself a trained lie detector examiner, once suggested to this reviewer that possibly Nash, or his publisher, realized that the tape could be tested with a PSE (Psychological Stress Evaluator) which would indicate Audett was lying, and removed the tape offer for this reason. At any rate, The Dillinger Dossier, like most of Nash's books, is one best avoided by serious historians but perfect for conspiracy freaks and anyone who appreciates a good joke.

Dillinger Got Away and lived happily ever after in Oregon
Crime historian Jay Robert Nash has gotten a lot of guff for this book. The Chicago author stepped on a lot of toes getting down to what really happen to John Dillinger. As it turned out, Dillinger wasn't really killed leaving a Chicago Movie Theater and Nash lays out the reasons why and they are most convincing, especially the lack of Dillinger's known scars, difference of eye color, height and weight between Dillinger and the dead man, a gangster wannabe named James Lawrence. Brothel owner Anna Sage and Martin Zarkovich, an East Chicago police detective, who later became Chief of Police for East Chicago, Indiana, set up Lawrence to help get the heavy FBI presence out of his territory. Zarkovich was my mother's sister's uncle in law. Nash has been accused of being a shoddy historian, but having read most of his books, I find him brilliantly honest and as with most brilliant people, they arouse jealousy among the less talented.