Overview

Master storyteller A. C. Greene re-creates one of America's most bizarre holdups--one 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 tragedy--and at times a comedy--of 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. Greene's factual account of the unusual crime reads like a novel--fast 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.

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9781574410716

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Reviews

A chronicle at once grim and hilarious ... a choice bit for collectors of Americana. <p>-- Book-of-the-Month Club

The trigger-happy tale of a West Texas bank heist with Santa Claus and his helpers featured in the role of the desperadoes. Greene goes after the down-home, just-plain folks angle which catapulted Bonnie and Clyde to stardom and indeed this would appear to have all the ingredients for a big box-office haul. Outraged by the desecration of the sacred symbol of Santa, the entire town of Cisco gets into the shoot-out and the good old sporting element is considerably enhanced by the local bankers' association posting of a dead robber reward offering $5000 to anyone who killed a varmint caught in the act but not one cent for a hundred live ones. From the initial takeoff when the getaway car runs out of gas, to the grisly finale, our heroes (?) have nothing but bad luck: one gets laid low by the posse, one gets the chair, another gets lynched from the tallest tree. Greene's gallows humor holds up better than the rope as the corpses multiply and Texas-style justice takes its redneck course. A bloody farce wherein the good guys and the bad guys are kin and Santa Claus meets his Maker to the fundamentalist thump of an old hymn: When the roll is call'd up yonn-der. . . I'll be there! Rough 'n ready 'n raunchy enough to swell the author's bankroll and gladden the hearts of outlaw-lovers back in the tame East. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

A. C. GREENE was born in 1923 in Abilene, Texas and after service in WWII he graduated from Abilene Christian College. He served on the staff of the Abilene Reporter-News, ran his own bookstore and headed the journalism department at Hardin-Simmons University. He joined the Dallas Times-Herald, serving as book editor and editorial page editor before being awarded a Dobie-Paisano fellowship during which he wrote A Personal Country. He wrote a column for The Dallas Morning News and wrote more than 22 books. He published numerous articles in The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, Southwest Review, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, New York Times Book Review, and wrote and narrated many television shows for PBS. He was a Fellow in the Texas State Historical Association and the Texas Institute of Letters.

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