Bonnie Parker has star quality; she dreams of being a famous poet. Charming, baby-faced Clyde Barrow eases into criminality the way he slips into his natty suits. In a biography so intimate it feels like an act of ventriloquism, Paul Schneider uses a wealth of primary sources—oral and written testimony from relatives, lawmen, victims, and partners in crime—to go deep into the hearts of two spectacular Texas criminals and the Depression-era America that engendered them. Bonnie and Clyde: The Lives Behind the Legend ignites like a combustion engine, driving the narrative toward its gruesome climax. A cross between ballad and pulp fiction (plenty of BLAM! and POW!), this book is a close encounter with killers at play.