Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #403878 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 231 pages

Review
"A chronicle at once grim and hilarious...a choice bit for collectors of Americana." -- Book-of-the-Month Club

"His story is chilling." -- Atlantic Monthly

From the Publisher
Master storyteller A.C. Greene re-creates one of America's most bizarre holdups-one that began as a lark. On Christmas Eve 1927, four men set off to rob the First National Bank of Cisco, Texas. Soon the lark turned into a tragedy-and at times a comedy-of errors. The robbers did not realize the car they had stolen for their getaway was running on empty. the leader did not anticipate the attention his disguise would draw, even though it was a bright red Santa Claus suit. And they could not have known that all of Cisco would have guns at hand because the Bankers Association had offered a reward of $5000 for any dead bank robber, no questions asked. The Santa Claus bank robbery set off a chain of events that would lead to violence and the death of six men and launch the largest manhunt Texas had ever seen. A.C.Greene's factual account of the unusual crime reads like a novel-fast paced, full of unexpected turns,and rich with the flavor of life in Texas at the beginning of the end of the Old West. This new edition contains an Afterword with photographs, some of them never before published, and follow-up information on the lives of the participants, including the surviving robber, witnesses and kidnap victims.

"What truly distinguishes the book is Mr. Greene's feeling for that distant, almost 19th-century time...of that vanishing, hellfire, Church of Christ, still faintly frontier place." - The New Yorker

About the Author
A.C.GREENE is the author of A Personal Country, 900 Miles on the Butterfield Trail, and The 50+ Best Books on Texas, among numerous other titles. He currently writes a column for the Dallas Morning News and lives in Salado, Texas, with his wife Judy.

Customer Reviews

A fascinating look at rural Texas at the dawn of Depression.
Late on the chilly Texas evening of December 22, 1927, four men drove calmly away from Wichita Falls in a stolen Buick bound for Cisco, 200 miles to the southeast. They were going to rob a bank. "The Santa Claus Bank Robbery," by noted Texas author/historian and newspaper columnist A.C. Greene, was first published in 1972 by Alfred A. Knopf. A new University of North Texas Press edition has just been released. Tracing the lives and ultimate fates of the doomed quartet, "The Santa Claus Bank Robbery" is a fascinating new look at this classic example of a botched holdup, deadly gun battle, bungled getaway, and the unprecedented manhunt that followed. At 24, Marshall Ratliff was already a veteran crook who should have known better than to hit a bank in a town where he was well known on sight. He should also have guessed that wearing a Santa Claus suit on December 23 would not make him invisible to the droves of busy Christmas shoppers crowding Cisco's bustling main street.

Robert Hill and Henry Helms also should have known better, being ex-convicts themselves. When they planned the bank job in a Wichita Falls boarding house, they were fully aware that the Texas State Bankers Association had recently announced a five thousand-dollar bounty for every dead bank robber caught in the act, but "not one red cent for a hundred live ones." But Helms had a wife and children and needed the money, while Hill hungered for the acceptance, adventure and noteriety. Louis Davis, though, was desperate for cash and had no idea what he was getting into when he saw a tempting opportunity to provide a decent Christmas for his huge Wichita Falls family. His first brush with crime became his last when he died from his multiple bullet wounds on Christmas Day. As written, "The Santa Claus Bank Robbery" is also a fascinating glimpse of common life in North Texas at the dawn of the Great Depression. Utilizing a highly detailed novelization technique to recount documented history, Greene makes the era come alive like few authors are able to do, especially in his portrayal of the tough breed of people populating the vast, lonely Texas plains. When Eastland County citizens finally lost patience with Marshall Ratliff and lynched him, after Ratliff shot and mortally wounded a popular Deputy in a failed jail break, their grisly mob actions actually make a certain sense in the face of the otherwise likeable criminal's ruthlessness. That's tough! With a generous selection of photographs, newspaper clippings, and updates on the main characters involved in the infamous crime, including a touching account of Bob Hill's last days before his death in 1996, "The Santa Claus Bank Robbery" is a must-read for anyone interested in those wild Bonnie and Clyde/Pretty Boy Floyd days.

A Humdinger
Excellent story-telling. Superb true-life tale of a band of rural 1920s bank robbers vs peace-officers, bankers, and well-armed vigilantes.Fast-paced narritive.Good read.

Review by someone 30 miles from the scene of the robbery
I've considered this to be one of the best books on rural Texas life and the things that took place in the late 1920s. I would give the book 5 stars but the use of the S and F words in it among others foul language took its 5 star rating away in my opinion. Though this book does hold a special place in my life as the Sherrif of Cisco, TX at the time that was killed in the robbery was my grandfather's 2nd Cousin.