Smash and Grab: Gangsters in the English Underworld, 1920-60

by Robert Murphy

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Book cover for Smash and Grab

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There was a time when Jack Spot, Billy Hill and Darby Mancini were the household names that the Krays became during the 1960s - from the 1920s until the end of the 1950s the exploits of these characters and their gangs dominated the tabloid headlines. This book tells their story. Personalities such as Ruby Sparkes, the female driver who was known to the media as the "bobbed haired bandit" developed smash and grab into a fine art during the 1920s. Billy Hill, Sparke's protege, graduated from simple breaking and entering to the black market and elaborate "project" crimes to become boss of London's underworld in the 1950s, alongside the East End tough boy Jack Spot.
  • ISBN10 0571154425
  • ISBN13 9780571154425
  • Publish Date 22 February 1993
  • Publish Status Out of Print
  • Out of Print 13 October 1994
  • Publish Country GB
  • Imprint Faber & Faber
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 224
  • Language English