The Incredible True Story of the Most Hunted Man in Pacific Coast Historyand the Woman He Loved

Before the 1920s found theirroar, a charismatic gambling addict named Roy Gardner dominated news headlines with daring train robberies and escapes from incarceration. Nicknamed "the Smiling Bandit," Gardner spilled no bloodexcept his ownas he cut a felonious path across the western United States, as the country hobbled through a recession in the aftermath of the First World War.

Once imprisonedfor the long term in federal prisons, including Alcatraz, the most notorious prison's second-most-notorious inmate won over some unlikely champions. Both Gardner's wife, Dollie, and a policeofficer who once arrested him launched extensive campaigns for Gardner's release on the vaudeville circuit, claiming a brain operation would cure his lawless ways. Was Gardner a good man who made bad decisions as the victim of injury and circumstance? Or was his charming personality merely the poker face of a scoundrel?

Richly researched, drawing on contemporary newspaper accounts, Alcatraz Ghost Storyexplores the life of Roy Gardner in the context of his great love story and the larger backdrop of drug addiction, incarceration, and the racial and labour violence of the 1920s and 1930s.