Dime Novel Desperadoes: The Notorious Maxwell Brothers

This thrilling narrative recovers the long-forgotten story of Ed and Lon Maxwell, outlaw brothers from Illinois who once rivaled Jesse and Frank James in national notoriety. Growing up hard as the sons of a tenant farmer, the Maxwell brothers embarked on a life of crime that captured the public eye. Made famous locally by newspapers that dramatized crimes and danger, the brothers won national prominence when they shot and killed Charles and Milton Coleman, lawmen trying to apprehend them. They were eventually popularized as the daring heroes of sensationalist dime novels, but terror and outrage at the brothers' disdain for the law sparked an unfortunate mainstay of frontier justice: vigilantes intent on a lynching.

A stunning saga of robbery and horse stealing, gunfights and manhunts, murder and mob violence, "Dime Novel Desperadoes" also delves into the cultural and psychological factors that produced lawbreakers and created a crime wave in the post-Civil War era. Every overview and encyclopedia of American outlaws will need to be revised, and the fabled "Wild West" will need to be extended east of the Mississippi River, in response to this riveting chronicle. With more than forty photographs and sketches that bring to life the Maxwell brothers' exploits, "Dime Novel Desperadoes" is a new classic in the annals of American outlawry