Interview with Chris Enss

Chris Enss, author of "Meet the Kellys: The True Story of Machine Gun Kelly and His Moll Kathryn Thorne"

Chris Enss's Website

Chris Enss is a New York Times bestselling author who has been writing about women of the Old West for more than thirty years.

She has penned more than forty published books on the subject. Her work has been honored with nine Will Rogers Medallion Awards, two Elmer Kelton Book Award, an Oklahoma Center for the Book Award, three Foreword Review Magazine Book Awards, the Laura Downing Journalism Award, three Western Writers of America Spur Finalist Awards, and a Willa Cather Award from Women Writing the West for scholarly nonfiction. Enss’s most recent works are The Doctor Was A Woman: Stories of the First Female Physicians on the Frontier, The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Along Came a Cowgirl: Daring and Iconic Cowgirls of Rodeos and Wild West Shows, and Straight Lady: The Life and Times of Margaret Dumont “The Fifth Marx Brother.”

Gangsters. Lovers. Legends. Meet the Kellys—the bootlegging, bank-robbing, husband-wife duo known as “Machine Gun” Kelly and Kathyrn Thorne—who masterminded one of the most infamous kidnappings in American crime . . .

How did a small-time, hip-pocket bootlegger become one of the most notorious gangsters in the country? For George “Machine Gun” Kelly, the answer was simple: a woman. Her name was Kathryn Thorne, a charming, strong-minded beauty who had family connections in the crime world—and big ambitions for the tall, handsome bootlegger. By the time she met Kelly, she was already an experienced criminal herself, divorced twice, and ready to marry a man who could give her the posh life she always dreamed of. With that in mind, she bought Kelly his first machine gun. And the rest is history . . .

George Kelly wasn’t a natural-born gangster and never carried a weapon bigger than a revolver. But Kathryn changed all that. Like a mobbed-up Lady Macbeth, she pushed her husband to commit greater crimes, introducing him to her friends in the underworld and convincing him to join in a series of bank robberies. Soon, the Kellys were living large, with a house in Texas, expensive jewelry, the works. But it wasn’t enough, and eventually the couple hatched a daring plot to kidnap oil tycoon Charles Urschel. Their plan worked. They collected the ransom—and captured the attention of the nation, the world . . . and the FBI.

A shocking story of ambition and greed, crime and punishment, Meet the Kellys offers a fascinating portrait of a reluctant gangster named after a machine gun and a scheming moll as driven as Bonnie Parker and Ma Barker. A must-read for true crime fans.

Michael Carter, Co-Host

Michael Carter's Website