Under an Outlaw Moon (Dietrich Kalteis)

Under an Outlaw Moon
Dietrich Kalteis
ECW Press
Fiction, Crime/Historical Fiction/Thriller
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: In 1930's Kansas, young Stella Mae Irwin isn't even sixteen years old when she meets Bennie Dickson at the roller rink. In his twenties, Bennie already has a record and prison time under his belt, offshoot of youthful missteps, though he's trying to turn his life around by driving a taxi and training as a boxer, with an eye on law school. The two fall head over heels at first sight, and before long have promised to marry each other (even though she's too young for a formal engagement). But when Bennie finds himself on the wrong side of the law again, Stella willingly risks everything to join him. Together, they become bank robbers in the vein of Bonnie and Clyde - and also find themselves at the top of the FBI's Most Wanted list.

REVIEW: Based on the real-life story of Bennie and Stella Mae Dickson, this is a novel about lives gone wrong and the blind faith of young love, as well as how the law sometimes creates its own monsters to justify its own draconian responses. Bennie isn't necessarily a bad person or even a sociopath, but is branded as a criminal from an early age and pushed until he decides to simply embrace the label, putting his talents to use in robberies when doors to a more legitimate future are slammed shut in his face. Stella may be young, but she's not a fool; she knows full well Bennie is dangerous, but knows too that there's more to him and his story, and is all too willing an accomplice in the name of love. As for their crimes, their two bank robberies - the first on Stella's sixteenth birthday, to fund their newlywed life - are handled in an almost benevolent fashion, without a shot fired or life endangered. Still, FBI director Hoover makes it his personal mission to hunt them down and turn the public sentiment against them, setting up a disproportionately drastic response to their relatively minimal crime spree; the field agent charged with tracking them down grows rather disillusioned with the bureau and the whole process (and the heavy propaganda angle, fed by a compliant press) as he watches it play out. Meanwhile, Bennie and Stella, driven as much by the endorphin rush as by the need for cash, veer from the giddy triumph of a successful heist to the struggles of life on the run and the necessity of using more crimes to escape the ones they've already committed, chasing an ever-more-elusive dream of someday going straight and putting it all behind them to raise a family in a nice house. Stella seems to recognize it as a lie they're telling themselves long before Bennie, but the two also realize that some roads can't be turned back from, especially not when the entire federal government's bound and determined to make an example out of them. The ending is as tragic as it is inevitable, as is the spin put on it for the public eye. The novel manages to humanize the characters and bring the era to life while also working as a solid story of doomed love and a crime thriller. Given my somewhat iffy reading luck of late, I enjoyed it all the more.

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