Peaky Blinders: The Real Gangs and Gangsters: The Real Story of Britain's Most Notorious Mid-20th Century Gangs

by Carl Chinn

288 pages, Paperback

Published January 6, 2026

Reviews

[Malvina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is set in late Victorian-early Edwardian Birmingham (mostly), before WWI - although there are some references later. (Post WWI is where the TV mini series begins, when the lads are all home from war, some in pieces, and most with PTSD.) Anyway, my gosh, it's a miracle Birmingham's streets aren't paved red with all the blood and brains spilled in this pre WWI era of the absolutely super violent gangs. Some reference is made to drunk perpetrators, but little to those who may have been also fuelled by drug addiction. All of them are propelled by violence and simply a desire to belong to the gang (rather than the organised gang warfare that came later for things like bookies, organised betting and other rackets). Some of the real criminals who made their way into the Peaky Blinders TV series are here: Alfie Solomons, the infamous Sabini gang, and Billy Kimber. Violence, thuggery and somehow or other lenient sentences only exacerbated the problems with increased rage when the perpetrators were released from prison. These gangs ruled the streets, and it must have been awful to have no alternative but to live there. As the author says, They were not men to be admired. Whew.

[Tõnu Vahtra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saw this book in airport bookshops TOP10 in my last trip to UK and picked it up to find out more about the Peaky Blinders Netflix series.
There is no historical proof of Peaky Blinders playing any significant role in organized crime, especially on the epic global level described in the book. Most of them were young men from extremely poor Birmingham industrial neigbourhoods for whom the Peaky Blinder role model possessed the only possibility to extend beyond their extremely limited means in life, this mostly manifested in petty crimes and fighting other gangs and protesting against the extremely limited police forces. The only Peaky Blinder who could be called an organized criminal at some degree was Billy Kimber who wasn't even a Peaky Blinder in the movie and his "crimes" maxed out at fixing some horse races. Extreme violence was part of everyday life in Birmingham during last and first decade of 19th and 20th century respectively, it has been heavily romanticised in the Netflix series. In overall the book is a bit like reading a historic chronicle, not an action/adventure book of a grand narrative/story.

[Alan Proudfoot · Rating 1 out of 5]

As an avid reader, this book just doesn’t work for me! 62 pages in and I’ve simply had to stop! I wasn’t enjoying reading what is, essentially in my opinion, a historical text, that pulls in potential readers (like myself) with the hook of “Peaky Blinders”.

The author clearly has great skill in research, and perhaps mainstream book shops popping this in their ‘holiday reads’ section are more at fault.

If you are expecting Shelby stories, factual or fictional, from the get go, then perhaps this is not the book for you or I!

☹️📖🤓

[James Tidd]

In this fourth instalment of Carl Chinn's Peaky Blinders series, this time he looks at the real gangs and gangsters of late Victorian and Edwardian Birmingham.

Chinn exposes the real people whose feuds, murders and maiming, baiting of the police, bullying of the decent poor, gendered violence, blackmailing, and roles in the political riots and racist attacks made Birmingham infamous as the city of the Peaky Blinders.