The audio review:
It's not often that you find a person so enthralled with an America's Most Wanted criminal that they write a novel commemorating their entire career as a bank robber. But that's just what Dane Batty has done in Wanted: Gentlemen Bank Robber, which tells the true life tale of Leslie Ibsen Rogge, a notorious bank robber who stole thousands of dollars from banks across the globe and lived a life of anxiety and paranoia, along with bouts of happiness here and there with the help of his wife. Batty, Rogge's nephew, has collected dialogues from Rogge which help tell the tale of his life of crime, harrowing escapes from authority, and subsequent final capture.
The most compelling aspect of Batty's book comes from the personality of Rogge himself. The narration is not literary; in fact, it feels mostly like basic dialogue from Rogge, which works to the book's advantage by forming a bond between reader and criminal. Rogge is described as a gentleman, and the narrative does little to dispel that idea. The prose is easy to read and personable, and it's almost too easy to be caught up in the ideas of Rogge, to relate to the struggles of a man who created some of his own problems. Yet it's difficult to dislike Rogge; for all of his wrong-doings and immoral actions, the man behind the perpetrations seems both intelligent and pure at heart.
Batty delivers a well-structured read, designing the narrative around the natural order of Rogge's criminal life. With the conversational tone, Wanted easily expresses the ways Rogge infiltrated bank security without giving too much detail. Rogge's hoists were intricate and full of minor details, but the book doesn't spend too much time giving minute facts and instead touches on the more interesting aspects of theft. The sheer number of bank robberies Rogge pulled off successfully boggles the mind.
Slash to the Point: Wanted: Gentleman Bank Robber delivers the goods on Leslie Ibsen Rogge in a personal, almost fanatical, way. Written as dialogue from Rogge himself, there's no better way to get into the mind of an ingenious robber than Batty's novel. You'll find memories from others involved in the cases as well, and on finishing Wanted, the reader hits a moral that's hard to forget: living life on the run really is hard work, and stealing big bucks isn't all the luxury it seems.
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