MEET THE KELLYS

Enss presents the true history of one of America’s great criminal romances in this nonfiction work.

There are few couples in the annals of American crime to rival George “Machine Gun” Kelly and his wife Kathryn Thorne. Their kidnapping of oil tycoon Charles Urschel not only made headlines in 1933 but also led to the creation of the Federal Kidnapping Act, as well as the first filmed trial in American history. It also proved a watershed moment for J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, which—after a series of embarrassments surrounding the Lindbergh kidnapping, John Dillinger, and Al Capone—reformed their reputation in the pursuit of the Kellys, deploying new crime-fighting and media-courting strategies, earning their immortal nickname, “G-Men,” in the process. With this book, Enss offers a history of the infamous couple, their crimes, their capture, and their trial. Readers meet George, the charming and fastidious scion of an upper-middle-class Memphis family who began selling whiskey to his neighbors as a teenager; Kathryn, the twice-divorced woman and bootlegger who may have murdered her last husband and whose ability to spin a media narrative rivaled that of Hoover; and Geralene Arnold, the 12-year-old girl who traveled with the fugitive Kellys as part of their cover story and was instrumental in their eventual capture. There’s also Ora Shannon, Kathryn’s mother, an experienced criminal herself who would end up sharing her daughter’s fate. The author draws heavily from court transcripts and newspaper accounts, offering what feels like a minute-by-minute report of events. “Glasses of whiskey and gin eased their anxiety,” writes Enss of how the couple spent their third anniversary—on the run. “Neither slept well. Kathryn continued to worry about her family, Kelly worried about the authorities discovering their location, and both fretted over the ransom money.” This propulsive and thoroughly researched true-crime account will especially please fans of Depression-era gangster stories as it helps to elevate George and Kathryn to the same iconic strata as Bonnie and Clyde.

A pulpy true-crime account of one of America’s most infamous kidnappings.