Bill Allen

Speed Trap: Eighty Robberies and Fifty Years Bill Allen First Edition, First edition

Bill Allen is no amnesiac, but he has missed much of the past thirty years.  At age 56, Allen has been in prison half of his life, locked up before he finished high school for a spree of drugstore heists that eventually involved the F. B. I and a chase from Arkansas to San Francisco.  Now he is telling that story in a book that one reviewer said "reads like a novel." Allen started adult life as a bad guy, carrying handguns into scores of Arkansas pharmacies, pointing at people's heads, and demanding every narcotic in stock.  Quickly learning druggists' favorite hideaways, he was adept at cleaning their stores to the bare walls.  His new book, Speed Trap: Eighty Robberies and Fifty Years (Parkhurst Brothers Publishers, 2012) tells of the price paid by Allen himself, his parents, siblings, extended family, and wives.  Not to mention many terrified druggists and some shoppers who went home with a frightening story to tell.Now a free man and employed at a transitional house in Little Rock, Allen plans a book tour of Arkansas schools and other audiences who will hear his message of danger in Meth, or "Speed," a very popular drug among young libertines. Allen's takeaway after paying a very steep price for his drug use and robbery is that there is no panacea and parents, communities, and educators need to be aware, "There is no magical answer to be found in Speed Trap, but there is encouragement. It is the story of my life, the pain I caused, the years of incarceration and the miraculous fact that I survived and was able to reenter society as a clean productive citizen. There are many miracles in my life, some of them found within Speed Trap's pages. There is evidence of God, the fortitude provided by hope and encouragement in its conclusion simply because if I could survive the 'Speed Trap,' so can others."