The Crime of the Century. The biggest train heist in Britain’s history. The Great Train Robbery. In the early hours of Thursday, 8th August 1963, a fifteen-strong gang stole £2.6 million (£45 million of today’s money) from the Glasgow to London mail train at Sears Crossing, Buckinghamshire. The crime was so epic; every single development of the case was followed tirelessly by the press. Countless books have since been published and, even today, films, television dramas and documentaries continue to study the smallest of details of one of the most daring and cleverly concocted criminal plans of all-time. Much of the gang were later captured and paid the price with lengthy jail sentences. But 50 years on, many still question who the real mastermind behind the plot. For years most people accepted that Bruce Reynolds was but is that really the case? One man knows the answer and the true identity of the man behind the robbery all too well. In this engrossing biography, the only living person who personally knows the real mastermind revisits the Great Train Robbery and rewrites history as we know it. Full of explosive, fresh revelations, The Secret Train Robber sees the final piece of the puzzle firmly set in place and the name of one of Britain’s most sophisticated criminal minds ever is finally revealed.

One of the most colorful parts of American History is the time of train robberies and the daring outlaws who undertook them in the period covering from just after the Civil War to 1924. For decades, the railroads were the principal transporters of payrolls, gold and silver, bonds, and passengers who often carried large sums of money as well as valuable jewelry. For the creative outlaw, trains became an obvious target for robbery. Willis Newton has never enjoyed the recognition and fame of the better known train robbing outlaws such as Frank and Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, the Daltons, and the Doolins, but he was the most prolific and successful train robber in the history of North America. Newton stole more money from the railroads than all of the others put together. During his lifetime, Newton robbed six trains and an estimated eighty banks, pulled off the greatest train robbery ever, netting $3,000,000, yet remains virtually unknown. So unknown was he that, despite all of his success as a robber, he was rarely identified as a suspect. Following his greatest heist, Newton and his gang member, composed of his brothers, were arrested, tried, convicted, and sent to serve long terms at Leavenworth Prison. When they were granted early release for good behavior, they lost no time in returning to robbing banks. Willis Newton’s life and times as America’s greatest, and last, train robber has been gleaned and developed from extensive interviews he granted during the 1970s when he was in his eighties. In addition, newspaper reports of his numerous train and bank robberies have been obtained and researched for precise details of robberies and pursuit.

The train robbery by the James-Younger gang in 1874 at Gads Hill, Missouri, was a big news item of the day. Americannewspapers from as far away as New York and Boston carried the story, and journalists in St. Louis, Chicago, and even European cities wrote scathing editorials about the crime. In time, the excitement subsided, but the raid at Gads Hill had a lasting effect on the lives of the James and Younger brothers. Dramatic events that occurred during the robbery, retreat, and pursuit brought the bandits world-wide attention and became the source for much of the Jesse James legend we know today. Here, told largely by trainmen, passengers, farmers, detectives, outlaws, news reporters, and others who were directly or indirectly involved with thecrime, is a true, documented account of Frank and Jesse James, the Younger brothers, and Missouri�s first train robbery. Many of the photographs included have never been published.

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.

This is the extraordinary story of how Charlie Wilson – renowned as one of the leaders of the Great Train Robbery gang – turned his back on so-called traditional crime to become the underworld’s original narco by helping to mastermind a multi-billion dollar drugs network in partnership with the original cocaine cowboy, Pablo Escobar. Wilson secretly helped turn cocaine into the Western world’s number one recreational drug of choice. Secret Narco unravels the bullet riddled, never-before-told history of South Londoner Wilson’s cocaine empire and his forays into the deadliest killing fields of all: South America. Bestselling author Wensley Clarkson’s meticulously researched story features interviews with many of Wilson’s friends, family members and enemies on both sides of the law enforcement divide, as well as associates of Pablo Escobar. .br> Secret Narco also reveals the final, tragic circumstances behind Wilson and Escobar’s bloody deaths, and how their twisted ‘partnership’ proved that gangsters never rest in peace.

The Great Train Robbery of 1963 is one of the most infamous crimes in British history. The bulk of the money stolen (equivalent to over £40 million today) has never been recovered, and there has not been a single year since 1963 when one aspect of the crime or its participants has not been featured in the media. Despite the wealth and extent of this coverage, a host of questions have remained unanswered: Who was behind the robbery? Was it an inside job? And who got away with the crime of the century? Fifty years of selective falsehood and fantasy has obscured the reality of the story behind the robbery. The fact that a considerable number of the original investigation and prosecution files on those involved and alleged to have been involved were closed, in many cases until 2045, has only served to muddy the waters still further. Now, through Freedom of Information requests and the exclusive opening of many of these files, Andrew Cook reveals a new picture of the crime and its investigation that, at last, provides answers to many of these questions.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Jurassic Park comes classic historical thriller about Victorian London’s most notorious gold heist. London, 1855, when lavish wealth and appalling poverty exist side by side, one mysterious man navigates both worlds with perfect ease. Edward Pierce preys on the most prominent of the well-to-do as he cunningly orchestrates the crime of his century. Who would suspect that a gentleman of breeding could mastermind the extraordinary robbery aboard the pride of England’s industrial era, the mighty steam locomotive? Based on fact, but studded with all the suspense and style of fiction, here is a classic historical thriller, set a decade before the age of dynamite—yet nonetheless explosive…