| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 96.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 96.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Dime Novel Desperadoes: The Notorious Maxwell Brothers. By John E. Hallwas. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008. xvi, 402 pp. $29.95, ISBN 978-0-252-03352-0.)
In this biography of Ed Maxwell and Lon Maxwell, John E. Hallwas examines forces that helped give rise to these criminal brothers. Dime Store Desperadoes explores sociological and psychological dimensions of the often overlooked story of the Maxwells. Their criminal activities, which ranged from horse stealing to murder, garnered the attention of the entire United States.	1
Born and raised in poverty, the Maxwell brothers faced a life of almost constant drifting. Those conditions, according to the author, led to the development of a certain mind-set. Hallwas asserts, "it is clear that the Maxwells had an axe to grind against the social group that dominated the rural world in which they, and their parents, had struggled and failed to rise" (p. 84).	2
For each brother, a life of crime began at different junctures. In his early twenties, Ed, the older brother, engaged in burglary and horse stealing in 1873 in western Illinois. After being captured and serving a prison term, he returned to crime in 1875. He enlisted the aid of his teenage brother Lon. During this period they committed robberies and thefts.	. . .

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