One of the great things about being a writer is that I often get books called, “advance reader’s editions.”  Publishers send these out to people in the book business for pre-publication reviews and to generate interest in the new book.  Here’s a new true crime story I think you’d like.

I’m reading and enjoying Joe Urschel’s new book, The Year of Fear.  It’s a nonfiction true crime story from the 1930s set in the Midwest.  In the midst of the devastating depression, many people turned to crime—not a stupid idea, I guess.  And many of them were good at it.  Urschel focuses on George “Machine Gun? Kelly and his beautiful but equally criminal wife, Kathryn.  He tells the true crime story of their rise and fall as bank robbers and kidnappers.  Here’s what I like about the book:

—Urschel has researched all the tiny details (he’s a former reporter) that make the otherwise dry facts compelling.  He reproduces the actual random notes from kidnappers, for instance.

—He uses a fiction technique to push the story and keep the reader interested: the bad guys, Kelly and Kit, are chased by the good guys, the FBI and particularly Director J. Edgar Hoover.  Kelly is trying to survive and get rich.  Hoover is trying to survive, politically, and get famous.  Will any of these people succeed?

—Urschel reveals the primitive and often corrupt state of law enforcement in the 1930s.  Makes me appreciate what we’ve got today even considering the occasional police brutality problems.  It was a lot worse back then!  Urschel’s true crime story recounts that the murder rate back then was more than twice what it is today.

—Although nonfiction, the characters come alive with all their strengths, quirks, and weaknesses.

Too bad some of his writing is over-blown.  For instance, in his initial description of Machine Gun Kelly and Kathryn, Urshcel uses way too many similies, adjectives, and cliche descriptions.  I wish he’d left some of that out and, instead, developed the characters as the story progressed with more internal motivations and characteristics.

But it’s a great and fascinating read.  It’s due for release in September, 2015.  Watch for it!