Rising out of the harvests and oil fields of the Oklahoma dustbowl that John Steinbeck so poignantly captured in The Grapes of Wrath, Pretty Boy Floyd became the most wanted man in America by the newly formed FBI-and the woman who loved him.

And while Bonnie and Clyde were tearing up the country, robbing and shooting their way across the Southwest-Charley knew them both, cared for neither-Charley was robbing banks from Kansas City to Ohio. The local newspapers were full of stories about guys like John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly, and Al Capone, but none of them had what Pretty Boy had: uncommon good luck, a taste for fancy clothes, fancy cars, and beautiful dames.

From the opening pages to the final chapter, we hear Charley and his pals, his lovers, and his family tell us the story of Pretty Boy Floyd. Writing with the same combination of lyricism and earthy prose that he used to create the western classic, The Stone Garden: The Epic Life of Billy the Kid, Bill Brooks plays the medium for Pretty Boy, his partners, lovers, and his enemies.