Go down together

Jeff Guinn's nonfiction study traces the outlaw careers of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, the Depression-era pair who roamed the American Midwest and South. It looks at why the public became so fascinated with them while they were still alive and in the decades that followed.

Rather than presenting the couple as calculating criminals, the book examines how their youth and a string of good and bad luck shaped their roughly two-year run of robberies and getaways. Readers see how a handful of reckless decisions helped turn two small-time offenders into national figures.

The narrative ends with the chain of events that led to the pair's violent end, making it a fit for readers interested in true crime and in the lives behind the legends.