Handsome Harry

Harry Pierpoint was the brains and the drive. John Dillinger is here but he's in context. Maybe not the star the movie makes him out to be. This book is factual, interesting, and a definitely read in prelude to the movie public enemy. I highly recommend this book to those who like to have historical context. I've read several books by this author and have never been let down. Fascinating period of american history --read and learn.

Reading a work of James Carlos Blake is like being invited to a gourmet banquet for the mind and Handsome Harry is no exception. He is one of the few authors where I read and savor every word. The characters, scenes and the plot come alive. He writes so that you can easily create his world in your mind and what a trip it is. Be advised that for all of his beautiful writing, Blake is also graphic. Still, I have yet to put down a Blake novel before enjoying every morsel is read.

Mr. Blake has brought to life the "Forgotten Bank Robber". This novel is fiction but is probably as close to reality as the story of Harry Pierpont, could be told. The auhtor's research is commendable, especially, with so little available historical data to draw from. Mr. Blake has literally re-created Harry Pierpont into a very interesting and readable story. Harry Pierpont would be proud of this novel!

I've been reading true crime books about Dillinger for the last quarter century, and I've always thought Pierpont was an interesting cipher, an important component of the Dillinger story who was never well explained by any of the "histories" (the foremost of which is THE DILLINGER DAYS by John Toland). But Blake solves all that with this portrait of a sociopath who wants to rise above the run of humanity by showing he's tougher/more ruthless than anybody. It's very believable, and I was highly impressed with Blake's research, also the skillful way he wove it into an authentic voice and narrative. He answers every question I ever had about Pierpont, for instance, why all the histories use the exact same mug shot as illustration. HANDSOME HARRY mentions that Pierpont always stuck out his tongue, closed his eyes, or made a face in his other photos, to show his contempt for the cops who were taking them; the one in the history books only shows him scowling, which must make it the best of the lot. Blake also asserts that every major incident and character is based on real events and people--and he made me believe it. (The shootout I hadn't heard of was the one between Pierpont and Dillinger and the St. Louis gang they had ripped off, in the parking lot of a Chicago night club; I'd like to know more about that.) I was also amazed at the amount of mayhem the gang managed to perpetrate in just four months. I knew they had done all this, but reading it again made it amazing. On the other hand, the four-month lifespan of the gang points to why I found the book rather unpleasant. Pierpont sacrificies everything, including his own life, for that four-month spree. He's a man who was born to be electrocuted. In Christian terms, he is not only going to Hell as an unrepentant murderer, he has lived all his adult life in a Hell of his own creation. And he LIKES it! The violent, remorseless protagonist of this book is highly disturbing, which is why I'm giving it four stars rather than five. At the same time, it's a fast read, and very skillfully written.

Ever notice how mug shots these days never capture that special twinkle in a suspect's eye? Just ask Michael Jackson, Nick Nolte and James Brown.Well, it wasn't always that way. Once upon a time in America, police photos were almost glamorous. In fact, a star-struck small-town sheriff once posed with a beaming John Dillinger as if they were two frat boys at a college reunion. A good-looking criminal was a celebrity.Now James Carlos Blake tells their story through the eyes of one of the most charming and charismatic -- and least known -- of the Depression-era gangsters: "Handsome" Harry Pierpont.Blake's eight novel is a brilliant portrait of the real-life Pierpont, Dillinger`s bank-robbing partner, and other not-so-famous bandits who almost made bank robbery, gun molls and Tommy guns fashionable. The time, place and people all come alive through Blake.Told by Pierpont himself on the night before his 1934 execution, the novel has an appealing intimacy. Blake captures the outlaw cant perfectly, from psychopathic narcissism to jailhouse bravado to paranoid remorselessness. In short, the gutsy Blake mimics a true criminal marvelously while telling an alluring story. Some of the myths are woven into Harry's tale, and some are only made delightfully more mysterious. For example, there's Dillinger's legendary, um, physical endowment -- a story that arises from a famous morgue photo which shows an enormous protuberance under the bandit's death-sheet. Pierpont's story? He claims to be even more gifted than his partner in crime, which is why he was also nicknamed "Pete." Ah, the mythology is safe a while longer."Handsome Harry" is not a departure for the seductively violent Blake, but a refinement. It still carries his trademark carnage, redolent sex and dry humor, but it is also a beguiling, hurtling digression into a new voice for Blake. It's not just first-person point-of-view, but it's crawling inside a character who really lived and re-building him from the inside out without disturbing the patina of legend that colors him. And it's all jake.