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During the Great Depression, a ruthless killer breaks out of prison to reclaim his status as Public Enemy Number One in this chilling, action-packed novel Before Dillinger, before Bonnie and Clyde, there was Virgil Ballard, the most ruthless killer the United States has ever seen. Ballard gets his start in the early 1920s, hijacking liquor trucks and selling the bootlegged hooch. He has a youthful face and the eyes of a killer, and it isn't long before he baptizes himself in another man's blood. The state gives him a life sentence, but no jail can hold Ballard. When he busts out of prison, he knows he has a date with death—but how many coppers can he take out along the way? Inspired by the author's love of 1930s gangster movies, Loren D. Estleman's debut thriller surges with the narrative energy and crackling dialogue that would become hallmarks of his numerous acclaimed and award-winning hard-boiled crime novels.
Loren Estleman
Loren D. Estleman was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a BA degree in English Literature and Journalism in 1974. In 2002, the university awarded him an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters for his contribution to American literature. He is the author of more than fifty novels in the categories of mystery, historical western, and mainstream, and has received four Western Writers of American Golden Spur Awards, three Western Heritage Awards, and three Shamus Awards. He has been nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award, Britain's Silver Dagger, the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. In 2003, the mammoth Encyclopedia of Detective Fiction named him the most critically acclaimed writer of U.S. detective
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