The Santa Claus Bank Robbery (A.C. Greene Series, No 1)

Master storyteller A. C. Greene re-creates one of Americas most bizarre holdupsone that began as a lark. On Christmas Eve 1927 four men set off to rob the First National Bank of Cisco Texas. Soon the lark turned into a tragedyand at times a comedyof errors. The robbers did not realize the car they had stolen for their getaway was running on empty. The leader did not anticipate the attention his disguise would draw even though it was a bright red Santa Claus suit. And they could not have known that all of Cisco would have guns at hand because the Bankers Association had offered a reward of $5 000 for any dead bank robber no questions asked. The Santa Claus bank robbery set off a chain of events that would lead to violence and the death of six men and launch the largest manhunt Texas had ever seen. A. C. Greenes factual account of the unusual crime reads like a novelfast paced full of unexpected turns and rich with the flavor of life in Texas at the beginning of the end of the Old West. This new edition contains an Afterword with photographs some of them never before published and followup information on the lives of the participants including the surviving robber witnesses and kidnap victims.