I appreciate the publisher allowing me to read this book. An interesting read though a bit hard to follow.

Before Bonnie and Clyde there was Tiger Girl and the Candy kid. This is the true story of their life and times. Very interesting.

One of my favorite books is "Go Down Together" by Jeff Guinn. He's a master storyteller when writing and researching non-fiction.

In "Tiger Girl and the Candy Kid" Glenn Stout brings Margaret and Richard Whittermore to life, much like Guinn did. The Maryland Bonnie and Clyde lived a fast life - prohibition and crime.

Stout delves into American history as well as into this love story, discussing WWI and the coming Great Depression.

It's a well written story and I can't wait to dig in more.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Hot jazz, cool liquor. Flappers and bad boys with guns. Crime. Passion. There is all that in more in the biography of Margaret and Richard Whittemore, aka, "Tiger Girl and the Candy Kid".

Set in the decadent excesses of a world post war and post pandemic, Margaret is one of many women ready to kick up their heels and live a little and her husband Richard, is determined to take what he wants - including daring jewel heists with his gang and his girl. Along the way, three men are killed, and the couple become infamous as they made headlines much like characters from the musical "Chicago."

A look into the life of a couple as equally flamboyant as Bonnie and Clyde, this is also a look into the time period, where everything could be blamed on gin and jazz and the world was changing.

In "Tiger girl and the Candy boy" Glenn Stout gives us with brio, the opportunity to discover the lives of Margaret & Richard Whittermore, a flamboyant Maryland couple known today as the Bonnie & Clyde of their time, two lives on the wrong side of the law and the impact their criminal behavior had on the American psyche of the prohibition era.
Finally, it was much more that the biography of two American love birds on a relentless crime spree that I found captivating in this brilliantly researched book, but Mr. Stout's fascinating portrait of the American Roaring Twenties, a restless nation on the move, buffeted between a WWI it never really wanted to enter and a Great Depression that will change its destiny once & for all during the inter war period. This book is definitely a winner!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for giving me the opportunity to read this wonderful book prior to its release date

Tiger Girl and the Candy Kid is the type of books that sweeps you off your feet. Roaring 20's? Check. Young mesmerizing gangsters? Check. Grand love story? Check. Here, we get the whole 1920's fantasy package, the beginning of romancing crime.

When I picked this up, I hadn't entirely realized this was 100% true crime! I thought it had to be part fiction. BUT NO! This is so incredible. Throughout the book, we follow the Whittemore gang, led by Richard Whittemore. This guy does a lot of small crimes, which lands him in and out of jail from his teenhood on. Then, we witness how he slowly grows a criminal network, fully organized, with clear goals. All along, as we watch events unfold, there is one constant : the love Richard Whittemore and his girlfriend Margaret have for each other. Through robberies, murders, jailbreaks, etc. the two are always by each other's side, which totally makes the story seem emotional. Such a strong love!

And this is how the whole fantasy of gangsters came to be. I find this incredible! Honestly, in this book, the destiny of the gang escalates quickly, and a lot happens to make people feel invested in the Whittemore's story. I get why they were on the papers, and the public kind of rooted for them. Still, as a 2021 reader, I'm grateful the author was able to capture all those moments from the Whittemore gang and bring all the characters back to life, almost 100 years later. Everything felt so vivid, and I got so invested in the events!

I truly enjoyed the way the author managed to keep some objectivity in the book, not taking anyone's side, be it the police or the gang. It also focused a lot on the facts, which I always enjoy, while still keeping the right amount of storytelling to keep the reader entertained.

Speaking of facts, I was AMAZED to see the amount of sources for this book!! Around 30% of the book is just a compilation of all the books, articles, etc. the author used to give us this story. I am in awe someone went through all that to recreate the fascinating lives of the Whittemore gang.

All in all, this is a great account of the life of those people who chose to live without concessions, as richly as they could, as fast as they could. If you enjoy that era, or Bonnie and Clyde type of romance and stories, you must definitely pick this up.

I received an advance reading copy (ARC) of this book from NetGalley.com in return for a fair review. This was an excellent book that tells the true story of Margaret (Tiger Girl) and Richard Whittemore (Candy Kid) who, for a brief time, lived a lavish lifestyle on the wrong side of the law. Set in the Roaring Twenties, this married couple went on a crime spree that included jewelry heists, murder and prison breaks. Margaret mostly hid guns and made deliveries while her husband handled the rough stuff. He had a record from the time he was a youth and while incarcerated fell in with a bad crowd. When Whittemore was arrested and sentenced to death, the young couple became media darlings. She was the beautiful gun moll and he was the bad boy who had stolen her heart. Before Bonnie and Clyde and before gangsters became Hollywood heroes, the Whittemores made news around the country and captured the public's interest despite his violent crimes. Author Glenn Stout is a fine writer who is quite thorough in his research. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in this era and the people who lived in it. A fine read!

A fast read, yet well researched account of the early days of organized crime and the infamous lives of their members.

After World War II, the disparity between rich and poor was exacerbated by the lack of employment and the recently implemented Prohibition. It is in these circumstances that young troublemaker Richard and Margaret Whittemore were ‘forced’ to choose the path of easy money and short life. Author Stout focused on these two characters — now almost unknown — to show one side of the criminal underworld of the Jazz Age. Without many opportunities in their native Baltimore, the couple decided to indulge in jewelry robberies and, in an age where the Bertillon identification system and fingerprints — not to mention DNA — were barely in their infancy, such acts were easier to carry out without being recognized. The Whittemore couple, nicknamed by the press Candy Kid and Tiger Girl, would lay the groundwork for the way the press would approach criminal celebrities— Bonnie and Clyde, afterward— elevating their protagonists’ short infamy in exchange for selling more newspapers. The faithful description of the times is far from what F. Scott Fitzgerald would write in his Great Gatsby, and it’s proven here that for every rich man there were hundreds of Whittemores looking for making an easy buck by risking their lives and killing one or two guys in the process. Not only does Stout describe the lives of both in surprising detail — given the very little personal information available — , but he also writes extensively about how Baltimore and New York were at that time, how prisons were run, the impact of the media in terms of criminals coverage and how the courts behaved at the time. A life as eventful and eye-catching as Whittemore’s would also need good prose to do it justice and Stout displays a flowery vocabulary, using slang and expressions of the time, giving the sensation to the reader that he is reading a hard-boiled novel. Whether their criminal lives were a product of their environment and times, or simply a pathological penchant for lawlessness, Stout shows an unbiased view, but no less entertaining.

Born from the lower strata and risen to a position where they could rub shoulders with the wealthy, this forgotten couple is revived with an almost cinematic writing that goes well in hand with those who lived fast and furiously. ~

This book was the perfect escape. It was lovely and fun. It was my first book by this author and I will definitely be on the look out for more!!

Tiger Girl and the Candy Kid is much a story of the Roaring Twenties as it is a true crime novel. Richard and Margaret Wittemore were two lovestruck, moral-less kids who were seduced by the glamour of the Jazz Age and became the first celebrity couple. Without them, we wouldn’t have gun mols and those great gangster movies of the 1930s. A great read for history and true crime buffs.