MAD FRANK Memoirs of a Life of Crime

Paperback. Reprint. SIGNED. Few prisoners have served nearly all of a 20yr. sentence with no remission. 'Mad' Frankie Fraser did just that. Acquitted in 1965 of the murder of Dickie Hart during a fight in a London club he was sentencd to 5yrs. imprisonment for his part in the affray that night. Almost immediately he received 10yrs. to run consecutively as the 'Dentist' in the so-called Richardson 'Torture' trial. In 1970 he was sentenced to a further 5yrs. for leading the Parkhurst Prison riot. He was no newcomer to prison. He had already served 7yrs. for his part in the slashing of gang-leader Jack Spot in 1966 and had spent time in both Cane Hill Mental Hospital and Broadmoor from where he acquired his nickname. Now Fraser looks back on his career in which he has served over 40yrs. in prisons and mental institutions. As a young boy he came into contact with the Sabini brothers, the race course gang of the 1930s. During a term in prison he met Billy Hill, the self-styled Boss of the Underworld, whose minder he became, working for him for nearly 20yrs. For half a century, Frankie Fraser was a key figure in Britain's Underworld. Now he recounts his involvement in killings and contracts, robberies and escapes; he recalls the grasses and the revenge, the Great Train Robbery, and London's Gangland, a world which included the Krays, the Richardsons, the escape of Alfie Hinds, and Hill's right hand man Albert Dimes as well as the lawyers, journalists, police and politicians who helped or hindered. Illus. + Index. 338pp. mass market p/back. With tipped-in label SIGNED BY JAMES MORTON. V.v. lightly browned edges o/w Nr. F.