The outlaws were on a rampage in 1933-34. In the dark depths of the Great Depression, robbers armed to the teeth with Thompson submachine guns, BARs and Colt 1911 pistols were knocking over banks wholesale — and the public, buffeted by financial misfortune on an epic scale, were often more than a little sympathetic.
The fledgling FBI under the direction of a young, ambitious and unscrupulous J. Edgar Hoover, wasn’t having much luck getting a handle on the crime wave. In fact, it was botching the job and getting civilians killed. The Chicago Field Office was having a tough time trying to catch up to the already legendary John Dillinger (best criminal name ever) and so they imported some lawmen from Texas and Oklahoma — experienced manhunters and gunmen — to bolster the crew of college boys.
The men from the West get off the train in Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies.”
One of them, Texan Charles Winstead, would fire the fatal bullet into the back of Dillinger’s skull near the Biograph Theater in Chicago. The estimable Stephen Lang played Winstead in Michael Mann’s Public Enemies as a steely-eyed badass.
He might need to reprise the role under the name of Charles Swagger.
Is that you, Charles Swagger?
Yeah, you got that last name right: Swagger. As in Bob Lee Swagger, as in Earl Swagger, as in the tough-as-nails Arkansas gunmen of Stephen Hunter’s long-running series of thrillers about the Vietnam-era sniper and his old man.
Next month, Hunter drops his latest installment, and it takes us back to 1934, when the tommy guns rattled and the sirens wailed…
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The depths of the Depression were marked by an epidemic of bank robberies and the swashbuckling, Tommy-gun-toting outlaws who became household names. John Dillinger. Bonnie and Clyde. Pretty Boy Floyd. Hunting them down was the new U.S. Division of Investigation—soon to become the FBI—which was determined to nab the most dangerous gangster this country has ever produced, a man so violent he scared Al Capone and was booted from the Chicago Mob—Lester Gillis, better known as Baby Face Nelson. To stop him, the Bureau recruited the most talented gunman of the time—Charles Swagger, World War I hero and sheriff of Polk County, Arkansas. Eighty years later, Charles’s grandson Bob Lee Swagger has finally decided to sell the family homestead, but when the developers begin to tear down the house, they uncover a strongbox hidden in the foundation. Enclosed is an array of memorabilia dating back to 1934—a much-corroded federal lawman’s badge, a .45 automatic preserved in cosmoline, a mysterious gun part, and a cryptic diagram—all belonging to Charles Swagger. Fascinated and puzzled by these newly discovered artifacts, Bob is determined to find out what happened to his grandfather, who died before Bob was born, and why his own father, whom he worshipped, never spoke of Charles. But as he investigates further, Bob learns that someone is following him, that someone is sharing his obsession with finding out what Charles Swagger really left behind. Alternating between Bob’s present-day search to uncover his grandfather’s legacy and Charles’s relentless pursuit for the nation’s most notorious outlaw in the Midwest of the 1930s, G-Man is a thrilling, action-packed addition to Stephen Hunter’s bestselling Bob Lee Swagger series.
I had more or less given up on Hunter. I LOVED his original Bob Lee Swagger novel, Point of Impact, and still consider it one of the top thrillers I’ve ever read. Some of his other entries into the Bob Lee Swagger saga are notable, and I really liked a couple of the stories about Bob Lee’s Dad, Earl. But the later run of the series went further and further over the top, and the writing got sloppy and turgid and I lost interest.
Sniper’s Honor (2014) marked a pretty solid return to form, as Bob Lee examines the history of a female Russian sniper in World War II. Looks like Hunter is employing a similar narrative technique with G-Man.
I must say I was utterly charmed by Hunter’s lengthy note to readers posted a few days ago on Facebook. He notes that the affections we form at the age of about 14 never really leave us, and I can attest that this is true. You’re reading what you’re reading this moment because at right about that very age, I devoured Allen W. Eckert’s The Frontiersmen and the tales of Robert E. Howard, Vardis Fisher’s Mountain Man and Will Henry’s I, Tom Horn.
And I love his premise, which slides the Swagger family into a crack in history where this story could damn well be true…
Bob Lee’s mysterious granddad Charles, who had been the Sheriff of Polk County, according to my earlier books (and who am I to doubt that?) was of perfect age and temperament to be one of Hoover’s western gunfighters, that is, the group of marshals and cow-town detectives he brought in to go against the heavily armed and gunfight-savvy bank robbers of 1934.
But still, I lacked what in the news trade is called “an angle.” I needed an organizing principle to tell the story of Charles’s time in the Chicago field office and his participation in the legendary shoot-outs. Somehow — not sure where it came from — I figured out that the accepted story, even as told by Bryan Burrough (Public Enemies) and as amplified by the movie version of his book, wasn’t quite right. It was too Dillinger-centric and it used the killing of Johnny at the Biograph theater in Chicago that July as the climax. This was nonsense. Dillinger was not particularly lethal and, moreover, pre-deceased his gang pals; the campaign against the robbers continued, bloodily, into the fall, and only came to a halt in late November in one of the most intense gunfights in American history when two agents shot for blood against the sociopathic bad boy Baby Face Nelson. No one had ever properly dramatized THAT story.
In Nelson, I found a monster the equivalent of Charles Swagger’s honor-bound virtue, so the match would be evenly weighted. I then did what has become my specialty: I laid out the known historical high-points and then plotted new ways to get to and from them. I tried to keep everything straight and honest, and have everyone operating within the parameters of 1934. The story—not the one I wrote, but the one lived by the Bureau’s Chicago field office and that twisted little nut-job with a Tommygun, Lester J. “Baby Face Nelson” Gillis—was magnificent. It’s the old one about men giving their all for duty, and taking the cards where they lay and the bullets where they hit.
I hope I did the real participants justice. They deserve it.
OK, Stephen Hunter, you’ve got me back. I’m first in line at the Deschutes Public Library. Go get ’em, G-Man!
deuce says
Lang is awesome. I still say he would’ve made a badass mature Conan back around 1995. Can’t you you just picture him — axe in hand — snarling, “Who dies first?” through smashed and bloody lips? We know Lang can beef up. Just look at his Quaritch role in AVATAR.
JimC says
Yep.
Matthew says
Sounds like Max Allan Collin’s books.
Here’s an article on Raymond Chandler and J. Edgar…
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/16/when-raymond-chandler-gave-j-edgar-hoover-a-hardboiled-snub.html
I was fascinated by the FBI when younger. It’s interesting that J. Edgar originally recruited college boys, but was force to realize he need manhunters and shootist like Jelly Bryce.
I hadn’t heard about Sniper’s Honor about the female sniper. There’s a manga called Black Lagoon where one of the characters is a former Soviet female sniper (Afghanistan not WWII) turned crime boss. One of the panels at her desk shows a copy of a book by Stephen Hunter, oddly. Don’t know if that has anything to do with anything.
JimC says
Interesting. You’re right about Collins. I like the Nate Heller books.
Matthew says
I’ve been trying to think of other writers who do this. On the fantasy side, there’s Tim Powers who works in the history of the romantic poets (Byron, Shelley, et al) but also used the Siege of Vienna in The Drawing of the Dark. The same Siege REH used in Shadow of the Vulture.
JimC says
Declare absolutely blew my mind. A dense, complicated supernatural spy story that scrupulously stuck to the facts of Kim Philby’s (and his father’s) history. Freakin’ genius.
deuce says
Count me as another who was blown away by DECLARE. To this day, I keep running into little factoids that corroborate Powers’ novel. Sheerly as a story, it’s on par with THE ANUBIS GATES — which is saying a lot.
Powers is an REH fan, by the way.
Matthew says
You know DECLARE is one I haven’t read yet. AUBIS GATES was my first and it blew me away.
J.F. Bell says
I’m in the same boat. Read all of Earl’s stories (because Earl Swagger is the best Swagger) and sort of got bogged down and lost interest in Bob Lee – though his earlier stuff wasn’t bad, and Hunter has done alright with a couple of his one-offs.
I figured eventually he’d wind up looking to the ’30s after he went deep enough the weeds with his modern storylines. Wouldn’t you know it…here we are.
As an aside, every time I watch Public Enemies I find myself thinking that Winstead’s story was a missed opportunity – frankly, I’d rather watch Stephen Lang play an old-time lawman than Johnny Depp playing a slick gangster. Weirdly, I’ve noticed this happening in a bunch of movies, i.e. the stuff in the background holding my attention better than the primary story.
JimC says
Lang owned every second he was on screen in that movie. Maybe we’ll get that flick if G-Man gets picked up. Damn, wouldn’t that be cool?
Tommy says
Earl is the best love Hot Springs!
JimC says
Yeah that was a good one.
Breaker Morant says
As we have talked about before-we largely share the same opinion of Hunter’s work. This one sounds worth checking out.
I had to chuckle a little bit when you said you would be picking the book up at the library. Wilbur Smith had a character who was a writer in one of his books and his response, when told by someone that he couldn’t wait to read his books at the library, was “Gee, thanks a lot.” LOL
I have had a long strange trip to get to a point in my life where I am able to fully utilize libraries as a resource in my reading strategy instead of reflexively buying books.
JimC says
If I bought em all, I’d be sleeping in the woods.
Keith West says
The problem I have with libraries is my tastes are so esoteric, they usually don’t have what I want. Also, my reading time has gotten so tight in the last year or two that I would probably go bankrupt from the fines on overdue books because it would take me so long to finish things. Still, something I probably should consider.
I will have to check this one out. I love Prohibition and Depression era gangster stories.
JimC says
Figured it was in your wheelhouse. Hats and gams…
Keith West says
You know me well.
Matthew says
I live in the middle of nowhere Colorado, but my library has a surprising diverse collection including among other things Harold Lamb’s collection the Curved Saber and little known Japanese mystery writers. There’s also two good used bookstores. (We had a Barnes & Noble before it folded.) I’m very lucky.
JimC says
You ARE lucky — Harold Lamb no less!
Tommy says
I had 30.00 Library fine last year.
JimC says
Been there. Hangs head in shame…
deuce says
Getting myself somewhat back on topic… I’ll have to see if my local library can order up that Hunter book for me. Coincidentally, the same library where I found THE WAR CHIEF and APACHE DEVIL when I was thirteen.
The early ’30s were certainly exciting times in the Midwest. We had some cops n’ robbers mayhem here in SEK back in March of 1931:
http://oklahombres.org/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2876036794/m/600106931
Once again — as with the Dalton boys — we see Okies attempting to help themselves to the hard-earned cash of Second Amendment-loving Southeast Kansans. Once again, utter eradication. We learn to shoot straight here in SEK. The cashier was the great-uncle of a classmate of mine. One of my favorite exes grew up in Edna.
A couple years later, almost to the day, Bonnie & Clyde rented themselves a snug little hidout in Joplin, which is only 40mi from where I was born. My young grandad was in Joplin with his grandfather less than 24hrs before the shootout. The apartment just went on the market, if anyone is interested in owning a little piece of history.
http://www.koamtv.com/story/31768014/bonnie-clyde-house-for-sale
Just two months later, Pretty Boy Floyd and his crew hit the Union Station in Kansas City. A bad day for the FBI.
https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/kansas-city-massacre-pretty-boy-floyd
JimC says
Fantastic stuff. I forget how cool that Oklahombres site is.
john roberts says
Lang had the best line in “Public Enemies”: “Johnny Dillinger ain’t going to no Shirley Temple movie!”
In the Earl Swagger books Charles Swagger is described as something of a monster, at least as a father. I wonder how Hunter will handle this in the new book.
And see if you can find “Baby Face Nelson”(1957) starring Mickey Rooney. You’ll never look at Rooney the same way again.
JimC says
Yeah–was just looking back at Hot Springs. Hard to turn an abusive father into a relatable protagonist. We’ll see…