Crooked: A Crime Novel

by Dietrich Kalteis

A page-turning crime tale based on a true story

Notorious outlaws Alvin Karpis and Fred Barker meet the old-fashioned way: serving time in Kansas State Prison. After their release in 1931, the two reconnect and form the infamous Barker-Karpis Gang and begin a spree of robberies that leave a wake of terror in their path, including two dead cops. Now hunted in several states, the gang settles into hiding in St. Paul, Minnesota, where they thrive under the protection of a crooked police chief, who happily turns a blind eye to their activities — so long as they commit crimes outside of his jurisdiction. With increased security at banks, the Barker-Karpis Gang switches to kidnapping, catching the attention of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI and landing them at the top of the most-wanted list. How long can these wily men evade capture? Who can they trust? Where will they run when the entire country is hunting them, dead or alive?

368 pages, Paperback

Published September 24, 2024

About the author

Dietrich Kalteis is the critically acclaimed author of thirteen novels and winner of the 2022 Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence for Best Crime Novel for Under an Outlaw Moon. His first novel, Ride the Lightning, won the bronze medal for Best Regional Fiction in the Independent Publisher Book Awards in 2015. House of Blazes was his fourth novel and won the silver medal for Best Historical Fiction in the Independent Publisher Book Awards in 2017. His screenplay Between Jobs is a past finalist in the Los Angeles Screenplay Contest. He enjoys life with his family on Canada’s West Coast.

Visit his website: http://www.dietrichkalteis.com/

He regularly contributes at Off the Cuff: http://www.dietrichkalteis.blogspot.ca/

And at 7 Criminal Minds:
http://www.7criminalminds.blogspot.ca/

You can also find him on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dietrich.kalt...

and Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dietrichkalteis/

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kalteis, best known for his Canadian-based crime novels, returns to the Depression-era where he set his novel Call Down the Thunder, and offers us a fictionalized version of the Barker-Karpis Gang, one of the most famed gangs during the 1930’s until J. Edgar Hoover hunted them to extinction. The story is dense and is told in short conversational chapters, each depicting a specific day, beginning with Alvin Karpis and Fred Barker meeting in jail and, Alvin visiting Fred’s mother after he gets out. Fred’s mother, Kate, is the famed and legendary Ma Barker, though she was not the mastermind of the gang’s crime spree, she never turned down any gifts they had for her or asked any questions and went into hiding with them.

Alvin, though not a Barker by birth, is the lead character and there is never much question that they are all a bunch of never-do-goods, fixated on bank robberies and later on kidnappings. The novel takes the reader step by step through each robbery, primarily through the Elmore Leonard like conversations that the characters have. They are a violent unsympathetic gang who faults Dillinger, a rival bank robber, for putting on an act as if he were doing it Robin Hood style for the little People. They cross paths throughout the tale with every crime character from the 1930’s from Clyde Barrow to John Dillinger to Frank Nitti and the Chicago Mob. Not all of their dealings with these other characters were friendly in nature. When they made their way into Chicago, they had to deal with Nitti and pay tribute with a slice of treasure too big to be believed. When they tried to launder ransom money through a Cleveland casino, they found too that the percentage off the top kept growing.

You will find that Crooked is unlike Kalteis’ other crime novels, both for the fact that it is historically and factually based, and because it reads a bit slower and requires more careful reading to capture everything that is going on.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an Advance Copy of this book. Thank you

I really enjoy reading and learning about Gangster of the 1930's, specifically Barker-Karpis Gang. Dietrich Kalteis really did his research, and in writing this book, putting the reader in the day to day life of a gangster. There were sections in this book that I couldn't read fast enough, the action and suspense was that compelling, but on the flip side, since we the reader, follow the Barker gang's day to day life, there were times that the book dragged.
The book starts in 1979, as Alvin Karpis, an old man, reminisces to some visitors willing to buy him a drink or two.
Then the book shifts back to 1931, as Alvin, fresh from Prison, makes his way to his friends home, Fred Barker, to give his Mom an update. Ma Barker takes to Alvin and when Fred return home, the two men stick together as fast friends. The story continues over the next 5 years and the two men figure ways to get some money and stay ahead of the law. Their gang expands and contracts with contacts they make, and bridges they burn. Their crimes change as they gain notority, and become the bulleye for the FBI and Hoover. Really quite interesting, you really get a feel for life on the run.

[Ken MacQueen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author Dietrich Kalteis has a soft spot for real life Depression-era gangsters. He’s followed his award-winning crime novel Under an Outlaw Moon with Crooked, his latest exploration of the blood-soaked world of gangsters, gun molls, crooked cops, all packing Tommy guns and other forms of lead poisoning.
This time, he stuffed the book with the rogue’s gallery of the most infamous bank robbers, kidnappers and murderers of the age. These are the guys, and occasional gals you’d find on wanted posters, on front pages and in newsreels: Montreal-born Alvin Karpis, Fred Barker, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, Frank Nitti, Al Capone’s scary enforcer, among many more.
All are blood-thirsty, greedy and amoral—not the sort of people you’d bring home to mother. Unless your mother was Ma Barker. And yet, in Kalteis’s deft hands, one feels a certain kinship with these hard-drinking, hard charging anti-social reprobates.
Is it wrong to root for them?
Of course it is. Blame Kalteis for that.
The crimes he chronicles are very real, but it’s the rat-a-tat-tat phrases and dialogue Kalteis invents that bring the characters to life, and propel the story at break-neck speed. The reader hangs for dear life on the running board of an armor-plated Hudson, trading lead with bank guards, inept cops and the occasional G-Man.
Kalteis hangs much of the story on the cross-country exploits of the so-called Karpis-Barker gang. As immoral as Karpis was, he engendered a loyalty among his gang members, tending to their casualties with syringes of morphine or sourcing back-alley “sawbones” for major repairs.
Karpis was a brilliant tactician with a nose for sniffing out opportunities: payroll deliveries, stuffed bank vaults, cops on the take. All the while he was in competition with other gangsters for public hearts and minds. It’s tough to compete with the headline-grabbing rampages of the likes of Bonnie Parker, Clyde Barrow, Baby Face and John Dillinger.
All were aware of their public personas. They were heroes, or at least a source of titillation, for everyday folks who’d been gut-shot by the failed economy. That said, they weren’t Robin Hoods, but robbing hoods.
Karpis took perverse pride in being the only one of four gangsters to top the FBI’s Most Wanted list in that era. And the only one to walk-away alive, spared the bullet-riddled ambush that ended the likes of his contemporaries.
Kalteis opens the book in Torremolinos, Spain, where Karpis, “just a pensioner” after twenty-five years in Alcatraz, finally gets his wish to reach the Costa del Sol. There, he lived out his days abusing his liver, hamming for tourists and peddling the two books he wrote about his exploits. “Guess being sent to The Rock beat going in the ground,” he said, performing for tourists who kept the drinks flowing.
He took joy in outliving his nemesis, the headline grabbing FBI director J. Edgar “that Quaker shit-bird” Hoover.
As the now-harmless old man bragged, “I was public enemy numero uno. Anyway, all that was about a hundred years ago.”
But Kalteis’s hands, those days are alive with danger and crazy energy. Crooked is another winner for one of the best crime novelists of this era.

[John Lansing · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his latest book, Crooked, Dietrich Kalteis takes the reader back to 1930’s America, where money was scarce and gangsters ruled the day. The depression was full blown and life was rough. We’re introduced to the Barker-Karpis gang, recently out of prison and trying to figure out the best way to put food on the table. Well, the only way they knew how to put food on the table.

Dietrich humanized the gang, and just like the poverty-stricken Americans of the mid-west in the 30’s, I often found myself rooting for the bad guys. I had to remind myself of the brutal nature of the men, because Dietrich paints such a perfect picture you can almost taste and smell the dust strewn air. You feel like you’re standing next to them in their wood shanty, where the young gangsters drink bootleg booze and plot their first bank robbery.

They were a gang of stone-cold killers, robbers, and kidnapers. We follow their brutal crime spree which lands them at the top of J. Edgar Hoovers most-wanted list. This is a crime novel at its best. Kalteis has the gift of turning historical fiction into a cinematic adventure. Crooked keeps the reader engaged and the pages flying. Dietrich Kalteis is a powerful storyteller at the top of his game and Crooked is a crime fiction must-read.

[patrick Lorelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

A look into the Alvin Karpis -Fred Barker gang who started out robbing banks and moved on to kidnapping rich people. The story picks up after they have met in prison and are now again meeting up. The portrayl of Ma Barker is nothing that I have ever read about before. There are other references to some other famous bank robbers from that period and also the formation of the FBI and how he did not like Hoover. He is telling the story to a couple who recognized him after he got out and was in Europe. A good book.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the second book I've read by Dietrich Kalteis, and it's my favourite of his so far. It was suspenseful and entertaining, and had me hooked from early on. I was not as familiar with the Barker–Karpis Gang as I was with some other 1930s gangsters, so I enjoyed learning about these infamous characters. I found the history in this book very interesting and it had me Googling to learn more.
I look forward to reading more by this author.
Thanks to ECW Press for the ARC.

[Enid Wray]

This title just didn’t resonate for me. I just never really cared.

Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for granting me access to an early digital copy. Apologies for the delay in getting this post up.

DNF

[Lex · Rating 2 out of 5]

This wasn't for me. The characters were interesting at the beginning, but it seemed really repetitive. The book is based off of a real person, so I can't really blame the author for all of the similar events.

[K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the 1930s, so being able to be immersed in the era through fiction was definitely a pleasure. Descriptive writing and intriguing characters. Definitely worth the read!

[Amanda Borovicka · Rating 5 out of 5]

The details in this book really draw you in.. make it so hard to put down

[Steve Essick · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’re a crime fiction fan and a new release from Dietrich Kalteis isn’t high on your “ must read “ list, then you’ll find that you’ve been missing the boat . With his crafty plotting and impecable ear for the criminal vernacular, Kalteis weaves shady tales with the best of them. For example, take his latest page turner @ Crooked, a fictionalized telling of one of the 30’s most famous band of bad guys ( and girl ), The Barker Gang. With a romp that takes them through a variety of locales including Toledo, where they stash some of their earnings, the antics of these notorious hooligans never lags and seems authentic as I have spent all 75 years of my life in Toledo and am quite familiar with its criminal reputation which is portrayed in @Crooked, and may be Kalteis’ best yet. Don’t let the Dietrich Kalteis boat pass you by.. @Crooked will thoroughly entertain you.