Crime Heist

A string of high-level jewel heists up and down the Pacific Coast Highway has gone unsolved for years, mostly because the perpetrator has lived by a strict code he calls “Crime 101”. Police attribute the thefts to the Colombian cartels. But Detective Lou Lubesnick’s gut says it’s the work of just one man. Now the lone-wolf jewel thief is looking for that fabled final last score, and Lou breaks all the rules of "Crime 101".

It’s been a year since Simi Chopra’s motley crew pulled off a high-wire diamond necklace heist with the help of sexy rogue Jack Danger. After living it up on the reward money, they're back where they started, struggling to pay their bills. So when a Chicago Mafia boss demands they return the jewels—plus interest, or else—they need to get the team back together…and fast. Unfortunately, Simi soon discovers that the necklace is in the hands of Jack's nemesis, a highly skilled and supremely vengeful master thief who is not above a little blackmail to get even.

Jack Warr is a young DC with the Metropolitan Police. Charming but aimless, Jack can't seem to find his place in the world - until he's drawn into an investigation that turns his life upside down. In the aftermath of a fire at a derelict cottage, a badly charred body is discovered, along with the burnt remnants of millions of stolen, untraceable bank notes - the hidden legacy of Dolly Rawlins and her gang of Widows. Jack's assignment to the case coincides with an investigation into his own past.

On a hot August day in Paris, just over a century ago, a desperate guard burst into the office of the Director of the Louvre and shouted, La Joconde, c’est partie! The Mona Lisa, she’s gone! No one knew who was behind the heist. Was it an international gang of thieves? Was it an art-hungry American millionaire? Was it the young Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, who was about to remake the very art of painting?

Millie has one goal: to make a movie in tribute to her late father. At the Manhattan Movie Academy, run by Ricky O’Naire, her favorite director, she’s determined to make it happen. But before she can finish her project, the academy is shut down. Six months later, she sees a preview for the new O’Naire movie—and he’s stolen her idea. Outraged, she reunites her former film crew to steal the movie and hold it for ransom days before its high-profile premiere. Putting their training and film-nerd backgrounds to use, they pull off the heist in extravagant fashion.

In 1923 Shanghai, native and foreign travelers alike are enthralled by the establishment of a new railway line to distant Peking. With this new line comes the Peking Express, a luxurious express train on the cutting edge of China’s continental transportation. Among those drawn to the train are oil heiress Lucy Aldrich, journalist John Benjamin Powell, and vacationing Army Majors Roland Pinger and Robert Allen, wives and children in tow. All anticipate an idyllic overnight journey in first class. But the train’s passengers are not the only ones enchanted by the Peking Express.

On May 3, 2010, an Irish national named Jeffrey Lendrum was apprehended at Britain’s Birmingham International Airport with a suspicious parcel strapped to his stomach. Inside were 14 rare peregrine falcon eggs snatched from a remote cliffside in Wales. So begins a tale almost too bizarre to believe, following the parallel lives of a globe-trotting smuggler who spent two decades capturing endangered raptors worth millions of dollars as race champions - and Detective Andy McWilliam, who’s hell bent on protecting the world’s birds of prey.

Malcolm Macarthur was a well-known Dublin socialite. Suave and urbane, he passed his days mingling with artists and aristocrats, reading philosophy, living a life of the mind. But by 1982, his inheritance had dwindled to almost nothing, a desperate threat to his lifestyle. Macarthur hastily conceived a plan: He would commit bank robbery, of the kind that had become frightfully common in Dublin at the time. But his plan spun swiftly out of control, and he needlessly killed two innocent civilians.

Unlock the cultural obsession with high-stakes robberies in Heist, a collection of the world's greatest real-life break-ins. From the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's famous art heist to the disappearance of the Marie Antoinette watch, these 100% true stories will have you on the edge of your seat--and double checking the locks on your doors!

In his day, Tom was a hard man. He came up with Dillinger in the 1930s, and pulled a lot of high-profile jobs before the state put him away. They meant it to be for good, but after twenty-three years the prisons are too crowded for seventy-year-old bank robbers, and so they let the old man go. Finally free, he heads straight for John Dortmunder's house. Long ago, Tom buried $700,000, and now he needs help digging it up. While he was inside, the government dammed a nearby river, creating a reservoir and putting fifty feet of water on top of his money.

In this breathtaking adventure, featuring colorful characters from showbusiness alongside royalty, the IRA and even Pablo Escobar, Clifford Thurlow reveals Keith Cheeseman's incredible true story for the first time.

Before the 1920s found their roar, a charismatic gambling addict named Roy Gardner dominated news headlines with daring train robberies and escapes from incarceration. Nicknamed "the Smiling Bandit," Gardner spilled no blood—except his own—as he cut a felonious path across the western United States, as the country hobbled through a recession in the aftermath of the First World War. Alcatraz Ghost Story explores the life of Roy Gardner in the context of his great love story and the larger backdrop of drug addiction, incarceration, and the racial and labor violence of the 1920s and 1930s.

Years after the death of her brother and the theft of her heirloom jewelry, ex-con Elle is on the run—until she spots a stranger wearing a signature piece. Determined to take back what is hers, Elle stalks and befriends the woman, using her gemology skills as a ruse. Elle offers to appraise and clean the jewelry, replicating and replacing the pieces instead. Olivia is drowning. She maxes out credit cards behind her financially strict husband's back in order to pay for fertility treatments. When Olivia meets Elle, she finally feels understood…and inspired.

Stephen Jackley was a young British college student when the global financial crisis began in 2007. Overwhelmed by the growing indifference toward economic equality, he became obsessed with the idea of taking on the role of Robin Hood. With no prior experience, he resolved to become a bank robber. He would steal from the rich and give to the poor. Against all likelihood, his plan actually worked. Jackley used disguises, elaborate escape routes, and fake guns to successfully hold up a string of banks, making away with thousands of pounds.

Los Angeles burglar Junior Bender has a rule about never taking a job that pays too well: In the criminal underworld, if you’re offered more money than a job is worth, someone is going to end up dead. But he’s bending his rule this one time because he and his girlfriend, Ronnie, are in desperate need of cash to hire a kidnapper to snatch Ronnie’s two-year-old son back from her ex. The whole thing is pretty complicated and has Junior on edge.

Gordon Goody was the mystery man of the Great Train Robbery. The tall, enigmatic figure behind the most notorious theft in British history, he has kept his silence for five decades—until now. Born in England but raised in rural Northern Ireland, Goody rose to the rank of army sergeant during National Service and sailed in the merchant navy. But he chose a life of crime and, undeterred by a dose of the birch in Wormwood Scrubs, became one of the most prolific robbers in London.

This astute, entertaining literary thriller features Helena Marsh, an art authenticator hot on the trail of an extorted painting in Budapest, skirting the law to return it to its rightful heir. When wealthy octogenarian Geza Marton hires art expert Marsh to buy back his family's Titian painting, she flies to Budapest to close what she expects will be a reasonably simple sale. But nothing is ever simple in this beautiful, flawed city where corruption abounds. Helena discovers that there are multiple bidders for the painting, including some dangerous Slavs.

In the predawn hours of a gloomy February day in 1994, two thieves entered the National Gallery in Oslo and made off with one of the world's most famous paintings, Edvard Munch's Scream. It was a brazen crime committed while the whole world was watching the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. Baffled and humiliated, the Norwegian police turned to the one man they believed could help: a half English, half American undercover cop named Charley Hill, the world's greatest art detective.

Relic smuggler and expert thief Guy Bodie is a tough man in a dangerous world, loyal only to his elite team of five. But when one of them betrays him, landing Guy in a hellish Mexican prison, he finds himself making a bargain with the most unlikely new ally: the CIA. There is a catch. In return for being released from jail, Guy must help the CIA solve the most audacious heist in history. As Guy knows, six of the Seven Wonders of the World have long been lost. But with the help of the CIA, he learns that the destroyed Statue of Zeus still exists - and it’s in the hands of a powerful secret society.

Over Easter weekend 2015, a motley crew of six English thieves, several in their 60s and 70s, couldn't resist coming out of retirement for one last career-topping heist. Their target: the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit, in the heart of London's medieval diamond district. Perhaps not the smoothest of criminals - one took a public bus to the scene of the crime; another read Forensics for Dummies in hopes that he would learn how to avoid getting caught - they planned the job over fish and chips at their favorite pubs.