"A lively and engaging interdisciplinary study of ten high-profile female lawbreakers in the United States during the 1930s and 1970s. . . . Should appeal to a wide audience, including historians of gender, violence, law enforcement, and memory."—Journal of American History
"Strunk’s ... book remains an invaluable reminder that popular culture is a slippery slope. Powerful individuals may believe themselves adept at shaping and controlling narratives. As Hoover’s experiences illustrate, however, once they enter the public realm, the most riveting and often socially significant narratives careen away from their creators and take on a life of their own. In the end, the audience controls the story."—H-Net Reviews
"A thought-provoking exploration of gender-role anxiety through the 20th century."—Bust
"Using FBI archival materials, popular culture, and film, Strunk skillfully tells the story of these women before and after their wanted status and describes how their popular representations emerged. She also, importantly, demonstrates how these women struggled to reinvent and represent themselves."—Library Journal
“Strunk’s important study shows—in a vivid and exciting narrative—how our fascination with female criminals, gun molls, radicals, and serial killers draws on our unconscious sexual obsessions, has paid off for Hollywood and Washington, and played into J. Edgar Hoover’s own obsessions, for the greater power and glory of the FBI.”—Richard Gid Powers, author of Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover
“Strunk shows how generations of Americans, fascinated and repulsed by women who take up guns and commit criminal acts, have constructed and applied their own myths, fantasies, and obsessions. Wanted Women is sure to find a wide audience among historians, film scholars, folklorists, feminists, women and men—anyone, really, who wants to know more about those red-haired ladies with guns.”—William Graebner, author of Patty’s Got a Gun: Patricia Hearst in 1970s America
“Strunk traces gun molls, revolutionaries, and other ‘bad’ women from the streets to the state to the screen. Her keen eye for a cultural history that is also a political story makes this book a welcome addition to a field that has received too little attention.”—Claire Bond Potter, author of War on Crime: Bandits, G-Men, and the Politics of Mass Culture
“Who, really, were these infamous women of American crime lore, and did they deserve the venomous vituperation the shamelessly self-promoting Hoover repeatedly heaped on them? Strunk offers intriguing new insights as she arrives at answers to both questions.”—Stanley Hamilton, author of Machine Gun Kelly’s Last Stand
