Desperate Men

Desperate Men: The True Story of Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, and The Wild Bunch, first published in 1949 and updated and enlarged in 1962 (under the title Desperate Men: Revelations from the Sealed Pinkerton Files) is historian James Horan's well-researched yet easy-to-read account of the lives and crimes of outlaws Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and a host of other renegades of the American Midwest and West. The book provides a unique, in-depth look at the work of the Pinkerton men in bringing these fugitives to justice and their efforts to provide a measure of security to an otherwise nearly lawless region. Included are 40 pages of illustrations.


Horan reveals the insecure, bitter Jesse James behind the bandit's mask. His death ended a sixteen-year reign of terror in the Middle Border, but farther to the west Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and their cohorts soon loomed on the outlaw trail. Their criminal careers and intimate lives are tracked in this revised, enlarged edition of Desperate Men.