True Heist

Shotguns and Stagecoaches tells the true stories of the Wild West heroes who guarded the iconic Wells Fargo stagecoaches and trains, battling colorful thieves, vicious highwaymen, and robbers armed with explosives....

Every four years, the criminal underworld engages in a game. The Game. The challenges range from the impossible to the deadly to the truly insane. Things that only a crazy person would tackle. I’ve won the game five times. This time will be no different. I’m at the top of my field now, the best of the world’s thieves. There’s nothing I can’t steal, and this time, the game is all about theft, subterfuge, and sleight of hand. Starting with a legendary painting of poppy flowers.

How did the son of a decorated policeman grow up to be one of Boston's most notorious criminals? How did he survive a decades-long feud with the FBI? How did he escape one jail sentence with a fake gun carved out of soap? How did he trade the return of a famous Rembrandt for early release from another sentence? The Art of the Heist is a roller-coaster ride of a life, the memoir of America's most infamous art thief Myles Connor.

On a Sunday evening in December 2004, two young men were at home with their families. Both worked for the Northern Bank’s cash centre in Belfast. They heard knocks on their front doors. Within a few minutes, masked men invaded their homes, overpowered their loved ones and disabled their electronic devices. It was made clear to the two bank officials that they had a choice: do what they were told or their families would die. In the wake of the twentieth anniversary of this bizarre robbery, Glenn Patterson builds on his popular BBC podcast to shed new light on the story of the infamous heist.

In the predawn hours of a gloomy February day in 1994, two thieves entered the National Gallery in Oslo and made off with one of the world's most famous paintings, Edvard Munch's Scream. It was a brazen crime committed while the whole world was watching the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. Baffled and humiliated, the Norwegian police turned to the one man they believed could help: a half English, half American undercover cop named Charley Hill, the world's greatest art detective.

I didn’t ask to be in charge of an innocent girl. But when the curvy young college student is put under my watchful eye, I can’t help wanting more. I fight my desire as hard as I can. I'm rude. Crass. I make her hate me and everything that I am. Until the day I hate myself for pushing her away. Now, I've gotta undo what I've done--appeal to her tender heart to give me a second chance. Not just to get her in my bed. But to keep her in my life. Forever. Cruel Mercy is a stand alone novella in the Margarelli Brothers, Devil’s Riders, and Untouchables MC universe. As always, no cheating ...

Thad Roberts, a fellow in a prestigious NASA program had an idea - a romantic, albeit crazy, idea. He wanted to give his girlfriend the moon. Literally. Thad convinced his girlfriend and another female accomplice, both NASA interns, to break into an impregnable laboratory at NASA - past security checkpoints, an electronically locked door with cipher security codes, and camera-lined hallways - and help him steal the most precious objects in the world: the moon rocks. But what does one do with an item so valuable that it’s illegal even to own?

Chas Smith grew up deeply enmeshed in the evangelical Christian world that grew out of Southern California in the late 1960s. His family included famous missionaries and megachurch pastors, but his cousin Daniel Courson was Grandma’s favorite. Smith looked up to Cousin Danny. He was handsome, adventurous, and smart, earned a degree from Bible college, and settled into a family and a stable career. Needless to say, it was a big surprise when Cousin Danny started robbing banks.

In the early hours of Thursday 8th August 1963 at rural Cheddington in Buckinghamshire, a Travelling Post Office train was on the final leg of its journey from Glasgow to London. Complying with a red signal light, the train was brought to a stop on a remote section of track. Suddenly, and without warning, the engine was boarded and taken over by masked men. So began legend of the ‘Great Train Robbery’…. Dan Shaw, author of ‘The Krays: Their Life and Crimes’ recounts the dramatic true story of that most audacious of crimes. Presented succinctly, from the start this book places the ...

Ballad of the Whiskey Robber tells the hilarious and improbable true story of Attila Ambrus, the Robin Hood of Eastern Europe. He's the onetime pelt smugger, goaltender (possibly the worst in the history of pro hockey), pen salesman, Zamboni driver, gravedigger, church painter, roulette addict, building superintendent, whiskey drinker, and native of Transylvania who's decided that the best thing to do with his time is to rob as many banks as possible.

One hot Monday morning in 1976, Albert Spaggiari engineered the European crime of the century. A bank president in Nice, France found his vault welded shut—from the inside. Spaggiari and his gang of 20 men had dug a 25-foot tunnel from the city's sewer system into the bank, where they spent a weekend cooking meals, drinking wine, and clearing millions of dollars in gold, jewelry, gems, and cash. Here is the breathtakingly compelling story of Spaggiari, his “sewer gang,” and the most daring, outrageous theft of the 20th century.

Absinthe, an elixir made of alcohol and herbs, is a booming business. Yet it is still an underground culture, associated with mystery, romance, and bohemian lifestyles, in keeping with its popularity among the writers, artists, and other ne'er-do-wells. First produced in eighteenth century, the spirit, known as "the Green Fairy," was banned worldwide by 1914 before the bans were gradually overturned beginning in 2005, the year Switzerland relegalized absinthe.

When an armored car heist turns into a bloody and grisly crime scene, Federal agent Blake Wilder is sent to Philadelphia to track down the culprits. But there’s more to this militantly precise and violent crew than meets the eye....

When he retired as the chief security officer of New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, John Barelli had spent the better part of 40 years responsible not only for one of the richest treasure troves on the planet, but the museum's staff, the millions of visitors, as well as American presidents, royalty, and heads of state from around the world. For the first time, John Barelli shares his experiences of the crimes that occurred on his watch, the investigations that captured thieves and recovered artwork....

St. Louis, Missouri is gripped by a series of twelve bank robberies that leave local and federal authorities baffled. Dubbed the Boonie Hat Bandit, this criminal methodically robs Banks in broad daylight leaving no clues. Everyone wonders who he is, and law enforcement scrambles while the robberies make national news. In this revised and updated version of the original, Bank Notes Revisited reintroduces the world to Donald Keith Giammanco. How and why would this quiet, middle-class, single father of twin daughters enter a life of crime?

Joe Exotic, star of the Netflix original documentary that “consumed the pop-cultural imagination” (The Atlantic) and transfixed a nation in the midst of a global crisis, opens up about his outlandish journey from Midwestern farmer to infamous Tiger King, and finally, to federal inmate.

In a secret meeting in 1981, a master thief named Louis Royce gave career gangster Ralph Rossetti the tip of a lifetime. As a kid, Royce had visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and made a habit of sneaking in at night to find a good place to sleep. He knew the Museum's security was lax, and he gave this information to a boss of the Boston criminal underworld. It took years before the Museum was hit. But when it finally happened, it quickly became one of the most infamous art heists in history.

In Tree Thieves, Lyndsie Bourgon takes us deep into the underbelly of the illegal timber market. As she traces three timber poaching cases, she introduces us to tree poachers, law enforcement, forensic wood specialists, the enigmatic residents of former logging communities, environmental activists, international timber cartels, and indigenous communities along the way.

On the morning of August 23, 1973, a man wearing a wig, makeup, and a pair of sunglasses walked into the main branch of Sveriges Kreditbank, a prominent bank in central Stockholm. He ripped out a submachine gun, fired it into the ceiling, and shouted, "The party starts!" This was the beginning of a six-day hostage crisis - and media circus - that would mesmerize the world, drawing into its grip everyone from Sweden's most notorious outlaw to the prime minister himself.

April 28, 2015, West Baltimore, Maryland: ground zero in America's Opiate Wars. In this crime-plagued section of the city, the death of Freddie Gray has triggered the worst domestic rioting since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and created a terrifying new breed of criminal entrepreneur.