Ronnie Biggs

Ronnie Biggs
Author: Ronald Arthur Biggs
Publisher:
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2011
Genre: Brigands and robbers
ISBN: 9780957039827

Having been released from prison on compassionate grounds in August 2009, this is considered by Ronnie Biggs to be the final chapter of his life story. This book covers events in his life following the Great Train Robbery in August 1963, the trial, his escape from HMP Wandsworth and his time on the run around the world.

Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story

Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story
Author: Mike Gray
Publisher: Apex Publishing Limited
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2015-03-11
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 9781910295144

Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story, written by two of Ronnie Biggs's closest friends and most ardent supporters, delivers exactly what it says on the label, giving a very personal, unique and yet disturbing insight into the mind and subsequent treatment by the judicial and penal systems of the man that became a legendary household name for his role in one of Britain's most notorious crimes, the Great Train Robbery of 1963, and his subsequent life on the run upon his escape from prison in 1965. Raising pointed questions and dispelling many myths, the story makes one wonder who is the greater criminal: the carpenter that played a bit part in an unarmed robbery 45 years ago, who has remained incarcerated since his return to the UK in 2001 despite the fact that he is now a frail, wheelchair-bound 79-year-old grandfather who is no threat to society, is fed via a tube to his stomach and can only communicate by pointing to letters on a laminated sheet; or the justice and prison systems that have allowed him to rot in jail for so long. One thing's for sure, although Ronnie Biggs's body is letting him down after a series of strokes and other illnesses, his legal team, campaign supporters, underworld friends and devoted family certainly aren't, and neither is his own fighting spirit or his humanity in the face of inhumanity. All he wants now is to be able to die a free man rather than suffer "a slow crucifixion on the Home Office cross," and once all the facts have been digested one can only be moved to ask: "How could anyone deny him that?"

Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story

Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story
Author: Tel / Mike Currie / Gray
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2011-02-01
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1907792562

Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story, written by two of Ronnie Biggs's closest friends and most ardent supporters, delivers exactly what it says on the label, giving a very personal, unique and yet disturbing insight into the mind and subsequent treatment by the judicial and penal systems of the man that became a legendary household name for his role in one of Britain's most notorious crimes, the Great Train Robbery of 1963, and his subsequent life on the run upon his escape from prison in 1965. Raising pointed questions and dispelling many myths, the story makes one wonder who is the greater criminal: the carpenter that played a bit part in an unarmed robbery 45 years ago, who has remained incarcerated since his return to the UK in 2001 despite the fact that he is now a frail, wheelchair-bound 79-year-old grandfather who is no threat to society, is fed via a tube to his stomach and can only communicate by pointing to letters on a laminated sheet; or the justice and prison systems that have allowed him to rot in jail for so long. One thing’s for sure, although Ronnie Biggs’s body is letting him down after a series of strokes and other illnesses, his legal team, campaign supporters, underworld friends and devoted family certainly aren’t, and neither is his own fighting spirit or his humanity in the face of inhumanity. All he wants now is to be able to die a free man rather than suffer “a slow crucifixion on the Home Office cross”, and once all the facts have been digested one can only be moved to ask: “How could anyone deny him that?”

How to Rob a Train

How to Rob a Train
Author: Gordon Goody
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014-11-10
Genre: Thieves
ISBN: 9781908479815

Gordon Goody is the mystery man of the Great Train Robbery, the most notorious theft in British history. Regarded by his partners as tough and fearless, he has kept his silence for five decades. Until now. Raised in rural Northern Ireland, Goody served as an army sergeant but chose a life of crime and became one of the most professional and prolific robbers in London. He and his gang were offered the job of a lifetime: details of a Glasgow to London mail train laden with cash, provided by The Ulsterman, whose identity Goody reveals for the first time.

The Autobiography of a Thief

The Autobiography of a Thief
Author: Bruce Reynolds
Publisher: Kings Road Publishing
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2023-08-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1789467101

On the 8th August 1963 a gang of 15 men stopped a mail train in Buckinghamshire and proceeded to steal sacks of money worth £2.6 million. It was the biggest heist ever carried out in the UK and frontpage news around the world. The mastermind behind this most audacious crime of the twentieth century was Bruce Reynolds. Perhaps the last of the 'gentlemen villains'; Reynolds epitomised that particular breed of sharply dressed, post-war criminals who mixed with royalty and movie stars, and never carried a gun. They thrived on adventure and glamour, and the Great Train Robbery was their last ride. From his childhood and early forays into crime, to planning the robbery and his life on the run, and finally his capture, prison years and growing old with the gang - this is a true crime classic. Widely regarded as a one of the finest memoirs of a life of crime, Autobiography of a Thief is essential listening for anyone interested in true crime. Narrated by his son, Nick Reynolds, who grew up on the run with his father.

Out of the Box

Out of the Box
Author: Julie McSorley
Publisher: Roaring Forties Press
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2014-10-20
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1938901347

Reg Spiers arrived in England in 1964 as a world-class athlete. He returned to Australia in a box, but that was only the start of his adventures. Crazily impulsive, romantic, and free-spirited, Reg became a national hero for smuggling himself 13,000 miles home as air freight. But as his fame and sporting career faded, Reg decided to smuggle something very different. Soon, he was on the run with his girlfriend, playing a cat-and-mouse game with police on three continents. A wild road trip across India and Africa—idyllic beaches and prison hellholes, shady friends and shadier cops, gun-toting militias and drug-running gangsters —led to a court room in Sri Lanka and the fight of his life. Could Reg beat the death sentence he’d just been given, or was this box too big to climb out of?

Criminal Masterminds

Criminal Masterminds
Author: Charlotte Greig
Publisher: Arcturus Publishing
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2005-06-01
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1848586884

Thinking big and thinking bad, fifty of the world's most notorious criminal masterminds have lied, cheated, murdered and swindled their way onto the pages of this book. Many of these miscreants had the brains and charisma to be successful in legitimate walks of life, yet they chose to take a different path - a path that perhaps got them richer more quickly, certainly in the cases of mobster Al Capone, robber Ronnie Biggs and drug baron Howard Marks, but which ultimately was to lead to their downfall. The impetus to cross the moral boundary into criminal territory is not provided just by a desire for great wealth, however, as this compelling narrative reveals. Consider the motivation of spies such as the Cambridge Four, terrorists such as Osama bin Laden and Carlos the Jackal and outlaws such as Bonnie and Clyde. The aims of such individuals transcend the merely material. Their criminality is driven by a need to exert power and then experience the thrill the exerting of this power brings in its wake. Criminal Masterminds provides a fascinating insight into the careers and character flaws of the most audacious reprobates that have come to the attention of the world's lawmakers. It will entertain, astound and sometimes shock you. It might even give you ideas...