Alcatraz Ghost Story: Roy Gardner's Amazing Train Robberies, Escapes, and Lifelong Love

by Brian Stannard

Overview

The Incredible True Story of the Most Hunted Man in Pacific Coast History––and the Woman He Loved

Before the 1920s found their roar, a charismatic gambling addict named Roy Gardner dominated news headlines with daring train robberies and escapes from incarceration. Nicknamed "the Smiling Bandit," Gardner spilled no blood––except his own––as he cut a felonious path across the western United States, as the country hobbled through a recession in the aftermath of the First World War.

Once imprisoned for the long term in federal prisons, including Alcatraz, the most notorious prison's second-most-notorious inmate won over some unlikely champions. Both Gardner's wife, Dollie, and a police officer who once arrested him launched extensive campaigns for Gardner's release on the vaudeville circuit, claiming a brain operation would cure his lawless ways. Was Gardner a good man who made bad decisions as the victim of injury and circumstance? Or was his charming personality merely the poker face of a scoundrel?

Richly researched, drawing on contemporary newspaper accounts, Alcatraz Ghost Story explores the life of Roy Gardner in the context of his great love story and the larger backdrop of drug addiction, incarceration, and the racial and labor violence of the 1920s and 1930s.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781510778245
Publisher:	Skyhorse
Publication date:	01/23/2024
Pages:	264
Sales rank:	128,939
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Brian Stannard is a guide with Alcatraz Cellhouse Tours. Previously he delivered meals in San Francisco’s Tenderloin with Project Open Hand. When experiencing writer’s block, he paints, and his artwork is displayed in bars from the Mission District to Australia’s Gold Coast. He also illustrated the book You Don’t Know Jack. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and son.
 

Editorial Reviews

12/11/2023

Alcatraz tour guide Stannard recounts the exploits of the prison’s “second-most-notorious inmate” in his immersive debut. Ray Gardner was a mail train robber who escaped prison three times in the years after WWI, earning himself regular mentions in vaudeville acts of the era and nicknames including the Smiling Bandit and the Human Eel. In reality, Gardner was an Army deserter and amateur boxer with a wife and child, whose thefts up and down the West Coast were never particularly lucrative. After Gardner broke out of Washington State’s McNeil Island prison twice in the early 1920s, federal agents mounted a public campaign for information leading to his arrest, and America became enthralled by the letters he wrote to California newspapers and President Warren Harding earnestly pleading for his conviction to be overturned. After he was caught and sent to Leavenworth and then Alcatraz, Gardner begged for a lobotomy, attributing his criminal behavior to an old head injury. Finally paroled in 1938, he published a brief memoir about his time locked up in Alcatraz with the likes of Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly, and gave several radio interviews. In 1940, Gardner died poor and alone, by suicide, at a hotel in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District. Stannard’s thorough research and swift pacing satisfy. Historical true crime fans should check this out. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Stannard’s thorough research and swift pacing satisfy. Historical true crime fans should check this out.”
––Publisher's Weekly

“Brian Stannard brings history to life in Alcatraz Ghost Story. Roy Gardner is the most infamous bandit most people have never heard of.”
––Cynthia Schreiner Smith, co-author of Alvin Karpis and the Barker Gang in Minnesota and co-owner of Cyn City Gangster and History Tours of St. Paul
 
“A riveting true story of hard living, heartbreak, and loss that also happens to include train robberies. In page-turning prose, Stannard reminds us that reality is always stranger than fiction. A must read for fans of US western history and jailbreaks.”
––Jason De León, author of The Land of Open Graves and Soldiers and Kings

“A brilliant lost brother to the iconic You Can’t Win by Jack Black. Brian Stannard’s Alcatraz Ghost Story tells the life of Roy Gardner, a charismatic gambler, thief, and eventual convict at Alcatraz. Part history, part cautionary tale, and part love story. This is a wild ride of a book about a larger-than-life criminal trying to navigate the modern Progressive Era.”
––Willy Vlautin, author of Lean on Pete and The Motel Life.

 

From the Publisher

12/01/2023

Stannard (illustrator, You Don't Know Jack), a guide with Alcatraz Cellhouse Tours, tells the story of Roy Gardner, who's presented as Alcatraz's second-most notorious inmate. The book describes Gardner as a charming man whose criminal escapades included train robbery, mail theft, and a series of prison escapes that earned him the nickname "the Human Eel" because he was so slippery. Despite the lobbying by one police officer (who once arrested Gardner and then befriended him with the intent of filming his escapades) and Gardner's wife, who embarked on a vaudeville circuit advocating for a brain operation to "cure" her husband's lawlessness, no authority would agree to pardon the prisoner. Gardner eventually volunteered to be transferred to Alcatraz, in the hope that closer proximity to his wife and daughter in Napa would save his marriage. Even his newfound acquaintance with Al Capone, however, was not enough to help Gardner achieve a happy ending. VERDICT An excellent and thorough biography of a character whose true story is not widely known, and a wild ride through the Depression and the U.S. prison system; many will enjoy the journey.—Jennifer Moore

Library Journal