Nate Hendley’s The Beatle Bandit: A Serial Bank Robber’s Deadly Heist, A Cross Country Manhunt, and the Insanity Plea that Shook the Nation (Dundurn Press, 2021) is a sad and shocking tale about Matthew Kerry Smith, a twenty-four year old man who robbed a bank in North York, Ontario in 1964 while wearing a Beatle wig. During his mad dash from the bank, Smith was confronted by bank patron Jack Blanc. The two exchanged fire and Blanc was killed. This murder and robbery prompted the largest manhunt in Toronto Metropolitan Police history.
Hendley’s text does an excellent job of not only outlining Smith’s case, trial, and the aftereffects of both, but also does a great job of giving his reader a sense of what life was like in 1960s Toronto. At the beginning of his text, he outlines what life was like in Canada both socially and politically. I really…
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Whipped Owl 