Heists: Gripping Exposes of the World's Most Notorious Robberies

by Joseph Cummins

Covering all manner of robberies, from the sack of a city (Panama in 1671), the attempt in 1876 to steal Abraham Lincoln's body and hold it for ransom, to traditional tales of train robberies and audacious bank heists, Heists is a collection of amazing crime stories. Beginning with the story of Henry Morgan, a charismatic Welshman who in the 1650s set out from England to the New World and over the next 20 years plundered the Caribbean, Great Robberies takes in more than 300 years of bold attempts to run off with the loot. Some robberies netted a miserly amount - their efforts were hardly worth it when Jesse James and his bandits left Minnesota's First National Bank with a paltry $26.70 - while others were ambitious and well rewarded; Lee Murray and his gang left with a 'Thank you for the cooperation ' and a cool 53 million after the Securitas Robbery in 2006 in Tonbridge. Sometimes it paid to risk everything for the 'tickle' - English slang for that big score that would provide an easy life and early retirement.

400 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2011

About the author

Joseph Cummins is the author of numerous books, including Anything for a Vote: Dirty Tricks, Cheap Shots and October Surprises in U.S. Presidential Elections; A Bloody History of the World, which won the 2010 Our History Project Gold Medal Award; and the forthcoming Ten Tea Parties: Patriotic Protests That History Forgot. He lives in Maplewood, New Jersey, with his wife and daughter.