Missouri Outlaws: Bandits, Rebels & Rogues

by Paul Kirkman

Whether seen as a common criminal or Robin Hood with a six-shooter, the Missouri outlaw left an indelible mark on American culture. In the nineteenth century, Missouri was known as the "Outlaw State" and offered a list of lawbreakers like Jesse James, Bloody Bill Anderson, Belle Starr and Cole Younger. These notorious criminals became folk legends in countless books, movies and television shows. Author Paul Kirkman traces the succession of Missouri's first few generations and how each contributed to the making of some of the most notorious outlaws and lawmen in American history.

Genres: History

144 pages, Paperback

Published March 5, 2018

Reviews

[MKF]

I have to mark this book as DNF after struggling to get through a few of the chapters. I thought each chapter would be about one outlaw but each chapter contains stories of multiple outlaws plus the history of Missouri. I think the author should of just picked one subject to focus on.

[Judy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a much drier version of the previous book Murder and Mayhem in Missouri by Larry Wood. While this does go into the outlaws who hailed from Missouri(and those who just took up residence for a good long spell), it also talks about many other things. Things like the lawmen who chased them, the prisons that were built(and how they were built) that held the outlaws,(most early jails were made from whatever wood timbers were growing in the area), the mood of the people who had to put up with renegades robbing their banks, shooting up their towns, killing their people and, for the most part, getting away with it. In some cases, the lawman that they hired would protect and defend them. In other cases, the lawman would appoint members of his gang to the coroner's jury so that they would rule that the person didn't die from a homicide, thus exonerating the lawman who was also the killer. Some parts of this book are very entertaining, other parts are not. I hope you enjoy this book more than I did.