Heist
A detail-driven account of how a gang of criminal misfits pulled off the world’s biggest cash robbery, from the bestselling author of true crime classic Fred & Rose.
The target was a regional counting house for the Bank of England, a fortified concrete bunker located within a triangle of police stations, one only three hundred yards away. When former UFC cage fighter Lightning Lee Murray discovered that this cash centre held hundreds of millions of pounds, he assembled a team of mates including a mechanic, a roofer, and a used car dealer. A hairdresser made disguises for the men so they could pass off as police officers. In an Ocean’s Eleven–style robbery, the gang succeeded in hauling away a lorry-load of cash—a staggering £53 million (worth $87 million at the time)—a world-record sum. That’s when their problems began.
By turns thrilling and hilarious, Heist is the compelling true story of this mind-blowing crime, including background on Lee Murray, the build-up to the heist, the robbery itself, and its aftermath.
The subject of Catching Lightning, as seen on SHOWTIME.
Howard Sounes
Howard Sounes (b. 1965) who was born in Welling, a suburb of South East London, was working as a news reporter for the Sunday Mirror in 1994 when he broke the first major stories in the case of Frederick and Rosemary West. Sounes went on to cover the West story extensively for the Sunday Mirror, then the Daily Mirror, up to and including Rose West’s trial in the autumn of 1995. Fred & Rose was first published shortly after Mrs. West’s conviction on ten counts of murder. A bestseller at the time, it has remained in print ever since, becoming one of the most widely read true crime books.
Shortly after Fred & Rose was published, Sounes resigned from the Daily Mirror to pursue a career as a full-time author. His subsequent books have included a biography of American writer Charles Bukowski (Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life); biographies of musicians Bob Dylan (Down the Highway), Paul McCartney (Fab), and Lou Reed (Notes from the Velvet Underground); a book about Amy Winehouse and other musicians who died at the age of twenty-seven (Amy, 27); a history of the arts in the 1970s (Seventies); and Heist: The True Story of the World’s Biggest Cash Robbery.
For more information visit www.howardsounes.com.
