Outlaws, Spies, and Gangsters

August 1, 2014

Gr 4-8-This entertaining collective biography focuses on the ever-popular subject of lawbreakers. The book begins with a profile of the Mad Trapper in the early 1930s, touching on the early uses of the two-way radio, and closes with the high profile manhunt of Osama bin Laden, when President Obama could watch the mission as it unfolded via a video feed. In between, Scandiffo provides an account of the capture of other infamous lawbreakers, focusing on different methods, such as undercover spying (which resulted in the arrest of Aldrich Ames) and the uses of collaboration between various countries and their citizens to catch international criminals, such as Manual Noriega and Adolf Himmler. Each chapter opens with a drawing of the suspect and a basic case file: name, crime, location and duration of the manhunt, and what types of law enforcement were involved. Each ends by discussing what became of the suspect. In the case of the international criminals, the author briefly acknowledges that the country's methods of capture may be controversial. The book is engagingly written, with a minimum of sidebar references, which works well for the fiction-like narrative style. It would be a welcome addition, especially in collections where high-interest, collective biographies are in demand.-Patricia Feriano, Our Lady of Mercy School, Potomac, MD

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2014
Grades 5-8 Exhilaratingand sometimes frustratinghunts for suspected criminals are frequent fodder for popular movies and television shows, making them an excellent subject for youth nonfiction. Spanning the globe and the last two centuries, Scandiffio's book smartly homes in on eight such criminals, from the infamous Osama Bin Laden, to the Russian cyberthief Vladimir Lenin, to the more unknown Albert Johnson, aka the Mad Trapper, in Canada. Despite the fact that many of these chases take place over months and years, Scandiffio expertly distills any backstory down to its essence, allowing the exciting chases to seemingly play out in real time. Maps, sidebars explaining relevant terminology and historical context, and illustrations depicting climactic moments enhance the text. Though the eight chapters, written in an engaging narrative nonfiction voice, effectively stand alone, Scandiffio threads the tales together with thoughtful reflection on the changing modes of hunting down criminals and exploration of emerging technologies.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

June 15, 2014
How a disparate bunch of "most-wanted" criminals were tracked down, even if the tracking took days, weeks, or years and years.Scandiffio brings an unhurried, smooth and just-portentous-enough tone to the brought-to-justice stories of eight criminal characters that most every adult (though maybe not that many children) has heard of, from John Dillinger to Christopher "Dudus" Coke of Jamaica, Manuel Noriega to Osama bin Laden. Each miscreant's last hours are chronicled, but so is a reasonably significant slice of history, often in boxed asides, lending a sense of immediacy and context to the action. She also pays attention to local color (except she doesn't mention the "Lady in Red," certainly local color to the nth degree in the gunning down of John Dillinger). There is an obvious disconnect between someone like Dillinger and the mousy spy Aldrich Ames or Vladimir Levin, a cyberthief at great remove from his loot, but there is also no sense of romanticism here, a suitable choice, as counted in this number are Adolf Eichmann and bin Laden. It is good to have this selection from around the world, not singling out some poor neighborhood or region, and the artwork lends a burly, yeomanly quality of hard work to the captors, just as it details the evolution of tracking through the century.This rogues' gallery of bottom feeders makes an appealing way to bring reluctant readers to history. (Nonfiction. 9-12)

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