Stick 'Em Up

Publisher: Thunder Bay Press Michigan

In Michigan, the roar in the "Roaring Twenties" was the deafening blast of a sawed-off shotgun or the staccato thunder of a Thompson submachine gun punctuating a bank robbery.  In post-WWI Michigan, a plague of ruthless desperadoes, better armed and driving faster cars than the police, cut a deadly swath across the state ranked eighth in the country for bank robberies.  Tom Powers uncovers a violent and forgotten era in Michigan in 23 riveting chapters.  The Wild West didn't die with the closing of the frontier; it came to Michigan in the 1920s and 1930s.

Tom Powers retired from the Flint Public Library in 1999, after 31 years of very rewarding work, in order to devote the appropriate amount of time that writing, reading, traveling, grandchildren, procrastination, nature, and hockey so richly deserve. His previous books include Natural Michigan; Michigan in Quotes; Audubon Guide to the National Wildlife Refuges: Northern Midwest; Great Birding in the Great Lakes; Michigan Rogues, Desperados and Cutthroats; and In the Grip of the Whirlwind: The Armistice Day Storm of 1940. Among his other stellar achievements is the creation of the worlds first Mime Radio Show and the Julia A. Moore Poetry Festival, which honored Americas worst poet. He steadfastly denies the Mime Radio Show was in anyway instrumental in the radio stations demise. Barbara, his wife of 50 years; their two children and their spouses; and five grandchildren are a constant source of joy. As always, once a book is published it is out of date. Camping and admission prices will change and new services will be added before a new edition finds its way to print. Keeping up with our state park system is like trying to roll an egg uphill with your nose, it needs constant attention. Until the next edition hell be keeping his nose to the shell.