Book Report: Missouri Bandits, Bushwhackers, Outlaws, Crooks, Devils, Ghosts, & Desperadoes by Carole Marsh (1990)

With a title like this, I’d hoped for a collection of thought-provoking and perhaps article-launching anecdotes. Instead, I got a young adult book self-published in a very rudimentary style circa 1990. How rudimentary? The pages are only printed on one side, the dust jacket is a stock dust jacket with the title pasted on, possibly from work-at-home-in-your-spare-time people, and the pages were designed with DOS-based, if that, desktop publishing not far above the old Print Shop software. And the author liked to make things fun by putting wingdings in words. I kid you not.

Revel in that glory.

And for all that, the pieces in the book aren’t that specific to Missouri. There are some things about Ma Barker and whatnot, but then they get into President Lincoln’s ghost in the White House, word finds with synonyms for Thief, jokes, and urban legends set elsewhere in the Midwest. All the better for the recycling of the material.

Hey, apparently Carole Marsh made a go of this judging by the sheer number of titles associate with her. Good for her. However, I cannot recommend anything from this book.

Books mentioned in this review:

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