VILLAINS' PARADISE Britain's Underworld From the Spivs to The Krays

Hardback. INSC. AND SIGNED. With the war over, the 1940s and the 1950s in Britain have the aura of a golden age. But nostalgia is deceptive: to contemporaries, the battlefront seemed only to have moved closer to home, as anxiety about armed robberies and psychopaths spread. Teenage Teddy-boy razor gangs proliferated and youths casually stabbed each other at dance halls. Billy Hill and Jack Spot slashed their way to underworld supremacy, while witnesses lost their memories. Ronnie Biggs and his accomplices prototyped the gang of the future with the famous Great Train Robbery of 1963, and Brighton police corruption shook public complacency. Britain had lost the Ashes, exports had nose-dived and all of its secrets had probably been given to the Russians, but when it came to safe-blowing, it led the world. By 1970 crime had tripled. By the end of the century it would triple again. With the narrative sweep and eye for telling detail that was a hallmark of his previous 'underworld' accounts, the author chronicles a history we might rather forget, through compelling stories we can't live without. Profusely Illus. + Notes and Index. 506pp. lge. 8vo. h/back. PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY DONALD THOMAS. F. in Nr. F. dw. A fairly heavy book which may require additional postage, particularly if shipped overseas.