MI Bad by Tom Carr

MI Bad by Tom Carr

Train robberies, stage-coach holdups, posses, breakouts and shoot-em-ups step out of the darker pages of Michigan's past and spring to life in Tom Carr's MI Bad: Robbers, Cutthroats and Thieves in Michigan's Past and Present.

The Great Lakes State has seen more than its share of sensational crimes in the last couple of centuries. MI Bad shines a searchlight on several of the most jaw-dropping capers and rogues, including:

- A couple of 1880s prostitution procurers who roll drunken lumberjacks for their wages in a whorehouse and bury bodies in shallow graves. The two die drunk and destitute in a freezing shack.

- Baby Face Nelson gets his big-time career start -- with an actual baby -- in a bank holdup in Depression-era Grand Haven.

- A 1970s, cinema-esque escape from Jackson State Prison that falls apart quickly once outside the razor wire.

- Train robbing brothers who get away with fortunes all over the Midwest, until one of them puts a bullet in the head of a well-liked Grand Rapids cop.

- A 1960s cop and a 2010s fifth-grade teacher break bad.

- Huge posses of armed Michiganders rush out to help -- and sometimes hinder -- a bank stickup.

- A 19th Century U.P. boomtown finally has enough of a brothel owner beating the women he holds captive.

- Plus many more blood-and-money tales of Wolverine-state intrigue, suspense or just plain awfulness.

MI Bad is author Tom Carr's follow-up to his successful, Michigan historical true crime debut, Blood on the Mitten: Infamous Michigan Murders, 1700s-Present, also published by Mission Point Press/Chandler Lake Books.

TOM CARR'S THIRD BOOK FOR MISSION POINT PRESS focuses on Michigan history and/or true crime. Prior to the release of Covid-19, he toured the state, presenting many of the stories from his books, as well as others that aren't, at libraries and service club meetings. He's looking forward to getting back to it once the pandemic has passed. Carr is a Northern Michigan-based freelance writer and journalist who previously worked for the Traverse City Record-Eagle for 25 years. For his investigative reporting, feature writing, breaking news, and humor writings, he has earned journalistic accolades.

Carr covered cops, courts, and crime on a regular basis. Carr has expanded out into other media as a freelancer, reporting and producing stories for Interlochen Public Radio, as well as having his work broadcast on NPR and Michigan Radio. The Detroit Free Press, the New York Daily News, traverseticker.com, Traverse Magazine, and other publications have published his work. Tom Carr is the author of Blood on the Mitten: Notorious Michigan Murders from the 1700s to the Present and MI BAD: Robbers, Cutthroats, and Thieves in Michigan's History and Present, as well as a contributor to Inside Upnorth, a Traverse City region travel guide published by Mission Point Publishing.

Carr and his wife, Maria, live and quarantine near Buckley, Michigan, where they reared their two sons.