Autobiography of a Thief - Tapa dura

This is the true story of a life of crime from Bruce Reynolds, the man who masterminded the Great Train Robbery. In 1946 Reynolds left school but was appalled at the thought of being in the same work for the rest of his life. There were minor crimes at first and by 1961 he was running a "firm". He achieved a succession of lucrative, high-profile robberies - the "Armoured Car" in Chelsea, the "City Gents Raid" at London Airport, the Riveria jewel theft. In the early hours of 8 August 1963, he and 16 others robbed the Glasgow-to-Euston mail train of #2,631,684 - in today's money, some #26 million. Bruce Reynolds was pursued by Scotland Yard for the next half decade until he was safely behind bars, serving a long sentence. Now Reynolds wants to put the record straight. This is the story of a professional criminal, a chronicle of life on the wrong side of the law. It introduces such characters as Rubber-Faced Mary, Waiting-for-the Big-One-Bill, and Chad the Shad and the Lurker in the Long Grass. It enters the murky world of crooked lawyers and corrupt policemen who routinely accept bribes and fabricate evidence and tells of five years on the run, and of life inside Britain's top security prisons.