Product Description

Lester Joseph Gillis—better known to the public and press of the 1930s as Baby Face Nelson—was one of a succession of public enemies beginning with John Dillinger and progressing to Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker, Machine Gun Kelly, and Pretty Boy Floyd. For decades their stories were largely myths, containing a combination of popular folklore and carefuly crafted FBI fables.

In recent years historians have generated a more factual look at the life and times of the various Depression-era desperados. Until now Baby Face Nelson has remained as enigmatic and one-dimensional as he was then, portrayed by J. Edgar Hoover and newsmen as a trigger-happy punk who looked like a choirboy and killed without a conscience. Finally the full story of his short life can be told.

Using new information that comes from the formerly classified files of the FBI, the Nelson who emerges from the pages of Baby Face Nelson: Portrait of a Public Enemy is a more paradoxical and interesting figure than one might expect. Obviously addicted to crime in his youth and evidently intoxicated with violence near the end of his life, he came from an ordinary, honest middle-class family. In a surprising departure from the gangster norm, Nelson and his wife remained fiercely devoted to one another, and between holdups they often lived a quiet domestic life with their two children and, at times, Nelson’s mother.

The main focus of this biography is on Nelson’s remarkable criminal career, from sensational bank robberies and blazing gun battles up to his death at the age of twenty-five. Many misconceptions are corrected and some of the abuses of the FBI are exposed. BIOGRAPHY ILLUSTRATED; INDEXED 6 3/8” X 9 1/4”, 480 PAGES HARDCOVER

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #70120 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 402 pages

Customer Reviews

What A Way to Live
The era of the depression desperado was a very short lived one, but the authors do a great job researching the life of Lester Gillis, aka Baby Face Nelson. Partners in crime such as John Dillinger, Homer Van Meter, Pretty Boy Floyd, and others are included in this book close to 400 pages long. Don't let the length keep you from reading it, because I believe you will find it hard to put down. I especially enjoyed the lengthy section devoted to the fiasco at the Little Bohemia lodge near Rhinelander, Wisconsin, in which federal agents staged a shootout with gangsters. Gillis (Nelson) was responsible for killing one of the agents while another agent killed an innocent person staying at the lodge he thought was a gangster. In any event, the bad guys escaped and lived to fight another day. The price these men paid for their violent lifestyle showed in the tension they constantly lived under as they covered their tracks to avoid detection from the law. At times they wistfully envied the simpler lifestyles of the common man who had an everyday job. I'm not that familiar with the suburbs north of Chicago, but I was confused when the author mentioned that Niles Center is now Wilmette in the picture section of the book, and then on page 361 Niles Center is referred to now as Skokie. Was Niles Center part of both suburbs? This is a well researched book and easy to read. Make sure you have a good amount of time when you sit down to read it, because you are not going to want to put it down. I highly recommend this book to you.

A very accurate and detailed account.
The image of Baby Face Nelson has been only of a cold-blooded killer without any redeeming qualities. Nickel and Helmer gives us a picture of Nelson as a good family man who did not smoke or gamble, as well as a killer and bank robber.
I highly recommend this well-written and easy to read book. I know it is extremely accurate because of my research on my Pretty Boy Floyd book and another book I am working on about the Dillinger gang.
It is a long book that goes into great detail, but does not have any unnecessary padding. Much new inormation is given on criminals associated with Nelson such as Thomas Carroll and Homer Van Meter.

Baby Face-a good read
This is well done, and does include much info not published before. Surprising that someone hadn't done this before 2002. I found a few small errors-typos-dates-addresses, but for a person interested in Baby Face and '30s crime this is a "must have".