CATCHING KELLY

Catching Kelly tells the story of an unlikely thief, an unlikelier lawman, and a very different kind of America.

The United States in 1933 was a land on the cusp of transformation. After Franklin Delano Roosevelt repealed Prohibition, when thousands of bootleggers saw their chief source of income run dry, they were forced to find a new racket—kidnapping. “Snatch” cash was easy money in those days, and the government was powerless to stop the crime—that is until one man in Washington by the name of J. Edgar Hoover decided to do something about it.

Catching Kelly tells the story of the country through the lives of one of its outlaws, the hapless bootlegger turned kidnapper George Barnes, otherwise known as “Machine Gun” Kelly. “Machine Gun” Kelly picked the wrong victim and the wrong time. J. Edgar Hoover and the press hunted Kelly down, gave him his infamous name, and presented him as a vicious criminal to citizens across the country.
Catching Kelly is the tale about the search for an outlaw and the transformation of the United States in the first half of the 20th century.

JOSEPH URSCHEL is a former managing editor of USA Today, where he also served as a senior correspondent and columnist. As a spokesman on media issues and press freedom, he has appeared on NBC Nightly News, Al-Jazeera, and CBS Sunday Morning.