"Brimming bank vaults. Loot laden trains. Who says crime doesn't pay? Heists is an incredible collection of eighteen of the world's most audacious robberies - tales of ransom, revenge and old-fashioned stick-ups. Investigating the planning, execution and modes of escape, Joseph Cummins reveals the bold and ruthless stories behind some of history's most shocking crimes - both successful and failed. From the gruesome attempt in 1876 to steal Abraham Lincoln's body and hold it for ransom, to the Lufthansa Kennedy Airport Heist in 1978 where paranoid robbery leader Jimmy Burke began murdering his gang one by one, Heists is a jaw-dropping selection of some of the most notorious attempts to steal and get away with it."
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.