Jerry’s Riot tells the story of the 1959 takeover of Montana State Prison by career criminal Jerry Myles and his 19-year-old boyfriend, Lee Smart.
Jerry’s Riot: The True Story of Montana’s 1959 Prison Disturbance, remains the only comprehensive nonfiction account of Montana’s infamous 1959 prison riot. This 445-page true crime book, written by Montana native Kevin S. Giles, frequently rates 5 stars from readers. It’s the inside story of a deadly disturbance during an era of extensive prison violence in America. Jerry’s Riot examines in captivating detail the explosion that resulted at Montana State Prison when former Alcatraz Island convict Jerry Myles collided with reform warden Floyd Powell. Jerry’s Riot takes the reader inside the prison walls to visit the lives of guards and inmates who experienced the riot. The book contains the only reconstruction of the riot from beginning to end and arrives at conclusions far different from the story told in 1959. The story centers on Myles, the riot’s principal ringleader, drawing on federal and state records and the author’s interviews with hostages, prisoners and other eyewitnesses.
What three readers say about Jerry’s Riot:
¶ “Sooo, on the nicest days of the year so far in Montana, what was I doing? Making the fatal mistake of picking up the book ‘Jerry’s Riot’! I could not put it down and finished the entire book over the weekend! Kevin, your attention to detail was mind-boggling and your style of writing had me on the edge of my seat the entire time….” Gayle of Montana
¶ “It is the best book I ever read in my life and I am a heavy reader. So informative, such interesting data, descriptions. I felt I know the guys you wrote about.” Bill of Montana
¶ “I’m an avid reader and found Jerry’s Riot one of the most enjoyable books that I’ve ever read. The extent of research by Mr. Giles makes all the many characters in the book come to life in a riveting page turner. Having lived in Deer Lodge at the time of the riot makes it that much more compelling. Many of my memories of the event were confirmed by the book. I recommend anyone interested in history or those who enjoy a well written book to pick it up.” Patrick of California
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True crime reviewer Laura James loved Jerry’s Riot. She was so impressed with “the enormous quality of the prose” that she awarded the book five stars. She wrote:
¶ “You can read (or watch) Shawshank Redemption forty times and learn less of real prison life in the era than in a chapter of this book. … Giles paints a stunning portrait of the ringleader, Jerry Myles….”
Tension begins on the opening page of Jerry’s Riot, when it becomes clear that something goes terribly wrong inside Montana State Prison on the afternoon of April 16, 1959:
¶ “A board falling flat to the floor is thunder to the heart. And so it was when prison guard Clyde Sollars heard a hard clap, he stiffened in fear. For a few seconds he listened, breathless.”
What did Sollars hear? Why was he afraid?
Mysterious convict Jerry Myles …
Few people at the prison knew much about Myles, a bull of a man built on tiny feet. Most of the guards hadn’t heard about his extensive prison career, which included time at three federal penitentiaries: USP Atlanta, Alcatraz Island, and USP Leavenworth. Myles came to Montana State Prison on purpose. He had no intention of escaping.
“Prison is my home,” he told sociologist Walter Jones Jr.
When the riot began, Warden Floyd Powell and a few other Montana officials tried to spin it as a misguided escape attempt. But why would Myles want to leave?
Myles was a confirmed psychopath. He wanted attention and got it. The reasons lie deep in his tattered childhood. The dangerous old bastille in Deer Lodge, a fixture there since territorial days, gave him the perfect stage.
This isn’t just another history book. Jerry’s Riot takes readers inside the mind of a psychopath who started what LIFE magazine would call “one of the most spectacular prison riots in America.” Jerry Myles was a career criminal. He was one of the longest-held inmates at the Alcatraz Island federal prison. And then came April 16, 1959, at Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge. Murder. Hostages. Threats of burning and hanging. A city on edge. All told in personal stories by the men who were guards and prisoners and saw the riot up close and personal.
Readers of Jerry’s Riot say the book took them behind the prison walls and put them into the riot. It left them feeling worried. They felt the fear.
¶ “I could hear the frightening clang and loud, eerie echo of the prison’s steel doors and chills overcame me time and again. Kevin Giles’ detail in Jerry’s Riot is absorbing. He paints the picture of those formidable and threatening days with a fine brush. The picture Giles paints is haunting and unforgettable,” Suzanne Lintz Ives, author of ‘Bob, the Tree who Became a Star’.”
¶ “Kevin Giles provides a chilling look into the mind of a madman and the institution that created him. His account of the 1959 Montana State Prison riot gives us an insider’s look at both sides of prison society and the predatory misfit who was at home in it.”
Giles wrote of the riot ringleader, Jerry Myles:
¶ “Myles would relish each tragic and dangerous moment. Those moments would be building blocks, and after he had constructed a monument to himself that stood high and public and sated his deepest desires for glory, and after the streets of Deer Lodge filled with onlookers and all the papers wrote about what he had done and hostages’ wives cried and he could feel anguish of his captive guards in the heavy cool air of the cell house, he would commit murder before his monument toppled. Two dozen hostages waited to die….”
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Western Montana native Kevin S. Giles wrote the popular prison nonfiction work Jerry’s Riot, the coming-of-age novel Summer of the Black Chevy, and a biography of Montana congresswoman Jeannette Rankin, One Woman Against War, which is an expanded version of his earlier work, “Flight of the Dove.” His new novel, Headline: FIRE! is the third in the Red Maguire series. Masks, Mayhem and Murder is the second. The first is “Mystery of the Purple Roses.” More information is available at https://kevinsgiles.com.