Under an Outlaw Moon: A Novel

by Dietrich Kalteis Narrated by Patrick Garrow

Overview

Meet Depression-era newlyweds Bennie and Stella. He's reckless, she's naive. Longing for freedom from tough times, they rob a bank, setting off a series of events that quickly spin out of their control

Under an Outlaw Moon is based on the true story of Depression-era bank robbers Bennie and Stella Mae Dickson. She's a teenage outsider longing to fit in. He's a few years older and he's trouble. They meet at a local skating rink and the sparks fly.

They marry and Stella dreams of a nice house with a swing out back, while Bennie figures out how to get enough money to make it happen. Setting his sights on the good life, he decides to rob a bank. Talking Stella into it, he lays out his plan and teaches her to shoot. The newlyweds celebrate her 16th birthday by robbing a local bank.

They pull it off, but the score is small, and Bennie realizes the money won't last long, so he plans a bigger robbery. What lays ahead is more than either of them bargained for. After J. Edgar Hoover finds out they crossed state lines, he declares them public enemies number one and two - wanted dead or alive. So much for the good life. The manhunt is on, and there's little room for them to run.

Editorial Reviews

MARCH 2022 - AudioFile

Based on a Bonnie-and-Clyde-type story of a real couple who robbed banks in the 1930s, this audiobook will have listeners feeling like they’re on the run with the main characters. Kalteis’s well-paced novel has solid character development, but it’s narrator Patrick Garrow who brings it all together. From the twang in the couple’s accents to the charged emotions in all the voices, Garrow takes an exciting story and ramps it up. Every sentence brings out the young couple’s exhilaration as they fall in love, the excitement of bank robbing, and the exhaustion of being on the lam. Other characters are given just as much energy and attention; in particular, Garrow’s angry, curt, frustrated voice for FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover is campy enough to work. Buckle up for the ride. M.B. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

★ 10/11/2021

Based on a true story, this riveting Depression-era crime novel from Canadian author Kalteis (Cradle of the Deep) pits brazen husband and wife outlaws, much like Bonnie and Clyde, against hundreds of FBI agents. One day in 1937, at a roller-skating rink in Topeka, Kans., 26-year-old Bennie Dickson, recently released from a Missouri penitentiary where he was serving time for bank robbery, meets Stella Mae Redenbaugh, a beautiful, sassy 15-year-old. Within a month, they’re secretly engaged, but Bennie’s quick temper scuppers their hopes for a steady life. After assaulting a clerk at the Topeka motor vehicle office while applying for a chauffeur’s license, Bennie flees, initially to Illinois, to escape felony charges. Bouncing from place to place and robbing stores along the way, he persuades Stella Mae to become his wife. During their honeymoon, the newlyweds commit two daring bank heists in South Dakota and go on the run, drawing the wrath of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who brands them public enemies number one and number two, and sparking a colossal eight-month coast-to-coast manhunt. Kalteis breathes life into these fearless, larger-than-life fugitives. This is a delightful treat for historical crime fiction enthusiasts. (Nov.)

From the Publisher

Kalteis breathes life into these fearless, larger-than-life fugitives. This is a delightful treat for historical crime fiction enthusiasts.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Things I love about this book. Kalteis’s legendary writing style. He spins us around his short, clipped phrases and keeps us wanting more ... The personalities of the characters shine in the dialogue.” — Ottawa Review of Books

“For anyone interested in Depression-era history, Under an Outlaw Moon will prove enjoyable ... What really brings the story — and the Dicksons’ relationship — to life is the cheeky, rapid-fire dialogue between them; their repartee is as good as anything out of an old movie.” — Winnipeg Free Press

“One could dismiss this book as another Bonnie & Clyde story — but not so. Bennie and Stella Mae Dickson are a different kettle of crime entirely. It may be mythology, but Bonnie & Clyde are portrayed as hardened criminals. What is different and engaging in Kalteis’s tale is the simplicity of the characters and their backgrounds.” — The British Columbia Review

MARCH 2022 - AudioFile

Based on a Bonnie-and-Clyde-type story of a real couple who robbed banks in the 1930s, this audiobook will have listeners feeling like they’re on the run with the main characters. Kalteis’s well-paced novel has solid character development, but it’s narrator Patrick Garrow who brings it all together. From the twang in the couple’s accents to the charged emotions in all the voices, Garrow takes an exciting story and ramps it up. Every sentence brings out the young couple’s exhilaration as they fall in love, the excitement of bank robbing, and the exhaustion of being on the lam. Other characters are given just as much energy and attention; in particular, Garrow’s angry, curt, frustrated voice for FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover is campy enough to work. Buckle up for the ride. M.B. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175983464
Publisher:	ECW Press
Publication date:	12/15/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

“Not much to it really, you go in and you point a gun. Doesn’t matter about your age. But, if we’re not of the same mind, I won’t mention it again, just put it right out of my head. Find a new way to go.”

“Just a lot to take in. One minute you’re making an honest woman of me, next one you got me robbing a bank.”

“Well, maybe so, but the way I figure it, a man with a wife’s got to have ambition.”

“And I can see you got plenty of it, boxing your way through law school, but, come on, just look how they ended up, those two.” Still thinking he might be joking with her. “I mean, you’ve run into trouble and paid the price ...”

“Actually more of it than I told you.” Telling her he did six years for the Missouri bank job. “Learned from my mistakes, and I learned from some of the pros in the joint too.”

“Pros who got arrested.”

“See, the way I see it, old Clyde got a couple things right, one thing he was a V8 man, figured Ford was the most reliable car on the road. But, guess he got a couple of other things the wrong way around. Sure you want to hear?”

“Go on.”

“Well, what they did, him and Bonnie, they swung in a circle skirting the edges of a couple of states, taking advantage of the state-line rule, you know the one?”

“Bank robbers got rules, huh?”

“Rule being lawmen from one state can’t give chase in another. A good lawyer’d get you off in a minute.”

“Okay, but how come a Ford?” She was having fun with him now.

“Well, Clyde loved his Ford V8. Even wrote and told old Henry Ford so. Said ‘what a dandy car you make, Henry.’ Told him he drove Fords anytime he could get away with one. Faster and free of trouble. Ford’s got all the rest skinned.”

“He really tell him that?”

“Yeah, he did. Although, you ask me, there’s nothing wrong with a good Buick.”

“So, you study the law, and find out how to break it.”

“Figures you’d see it that way, smarty pants.” Bennie turned on his side, looking at her. “See, it was mostly sharp thinking on Clyde’s part, except in the end he put trust in the wrong fella, and maybe didn’t know when to quit. And the cops got to this wrong fellow and set up that ambush.”

“Could have stepped out with their badges and guns and made them stop and give up. Send them to prison.”

“Not how the FBI and the Texas Rangers think. Strikes a nerve with that J. Edgar Hoover as soon as you cross a state line. And that man doesn’t like the hero image some bank robbers get — taking from the rich, giving to the poor. Why he likes to paint them as public enemies.”

“That what you want to be, a public enemy?”

“Like I said, if you don’t want to do it, we don’t need to talk on it.”

“Well, maybe I need to think on it. Now you gonna just keep on talking or what?”

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