Ma Barker

America's Most Wanted Mother

Published by TwoDot
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
LIST PRICE $16.95

About The Book

Was Arizona Donnie Clark, AKA Kate “Ma” Barker the mastermind behind the Barker gang terrorizing the Midwest during the early years of the great Depression? Or was she a terrible mother who urged her sons to criminal behavior for her own financial gain? Or does the truth lie somewhere in between. This lively retelling of the legend of Ma Barker and her boys is full of action, intrigue, and the answers to mysteries that have lingered for more than 70 years.

About The Authors

Chris Enss is a New York Times best-selling author who has been writing about women of the Old West for more than thirty years. She has penned more than fifty published books on the subject. Her work has been honored with nine Will Rogers Medallion Awards, two Elmer Kelton Book Awards, an Oklahoma Center for the Book Award, three Foreword Review Magazine Book Awards, the Laura Downing Journalism Award, and a WILLA Award from Women Writing the West for Best Scholarly Nonfiction Book. Enss’s most recent works are The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Along Came a Cowgirl: Daring and Iconic Cowgirls of Rodeos and Wild West Shows, Straight Lady: The Life and Times of Margaret Dumont “The Fifth Marx Brother,” and The Doctor Was A Woman: Stories of the First Female Physicians on the Frontier.

Product Details

  • Publisher: TwoDot (October 5, 2016)
  • Length: 240 pages
  • ISBN13: 9780762796311

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Raves and Reviews

Ma Barker: America's Most Wanted Mother tells of the notorious mother of several criminals who oversaw the Barker gang during the Depression years. Kate Barker's thirst for the finer things in life was challenged by the economic pressures of her times, and her image has been virtually set in stone from FBI records depicting her as a controlling mother figure. Was she really as terrible as history claims? Two entertainment industry writers survey the real facts of not only Ma Barker's life and participation in family and crime, but the milieu of her era, and the reality of her situation. History and biography readers will find this a lively and different exploration.

– Midwest Book Review

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