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The Devil: Britain's Most Feared Underworld Taxman
 
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The Devil: Britain's Most Feared Underworld Taxman (Paperback)

by Graham Johnson (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
RRP: £9.99
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The Devil: Britain's Most Feared Underworld Taxman + Cocky: The Rise and Fall of Curtis Warren, Britain's Biggest Drugs Baron + Football and Gangsters: How Organised Crime Controls the Beautiful Game
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Product details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Mainstream Publishing (2 Aug 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1845961781
  • ISBN-13: 978-1845961787
  • Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 3,693 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #3 in  Books > Biography > True Crime > Mafia & Organised Crime
    #5 in  Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Law & Disorder > Criminology
    #34 in  Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > True Accounts

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Product Description

Product Description
Drug dealers beware. The Devil is coming to get you. Gangster Stephen French invented the perfect crime: robbing drug barons of their huge fortunes. In SAS-style swoops, French raided their fortified mansions and tortured them with horrifying violence until they paid up. Through 'taxing' the richest and most powerful crimelords in the UK, he netted over 20 million. French was no ordinary criminal. He was a world-champion fighter, he studied psychology at university to master mind-control techniques, and he used the teachings of Machiavelli and samurai warriors to outwit his enemies. "The Devil" also reveals French's complex relationship with Curtis Warren, the wealthiest criminal in British history. The two were childhood pals, then partners and finally bitter enemies. Now a legitimate businessman, French built up a multimillion-pound empire. Having eventually turned his back on his former life, he is now seeking to set the record straight.

About the Author
Graham Johnson is the author of the bestselling Powder Wars, Football and Gangsters and Druglord. He is a former investigations editor at the Sunday Mirror and during ten years on Fleet Street covered subjects including child slavery, people smuggling, drugs and the Balkan wars.

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Customer Reviews

21 Reviews
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 (12)
4 star:
 (5)
3 star:
 (1)
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Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (21 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read about Liverpool as a city, 20 April 2008
By Red (Liverpool) - See all my reviews
  
Great read very honest and a all the more disturbing because its true. Having been in the Grafton many times I know how real the book is. I read liverpool stories as often as they are published, and this is as entertaining as any I have read recently. The topic is a disturbing one, but a sad endightment of the society we live in to day. The Frenchman is a scary character indeed, but if you live in that world then there are scary people around every corner. This book doesnt glorify anything, its just the way it is. The more real, the more terrifying it becomes. If you like fiction try Liveroppl author Conrad Jones, and his thrillers,Soft Target, Soft Target 2, and three. They are all set in Liverpool, mostly in the city centre and around Anfield, excellent reading by a local author. Fantastic reading!!!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Facinating and Easy To Read Book, 28 Aug 2008
By Stuart (Ireland) - See all my reviews
Graham Johnson writes this book from the perpective of the man who the book is based on - Stephen French. Having met with Stephen and done hundreds of hours of interviews, the book totaly feels like its being written from the man himself. The author writes the story from Stephens perspective to give a closer feel for the reader. The book reveals many incidents of the life some peopler called "The Devil". The book has so many stories to tell of extrmely dangerous conflict situations between rival gangs, feuds with fellow crew members and the author does not hold back. The author says in the first few pages how he really wanted to get the reader a feeling of Stephens perspective. I really felt I got a very strong sense of the man from this book and read it in 2 days. This guy had many wild encounters for decades. Many people would surely be dead or incarcerated if they were in the same situations. Find out how he survived and how Stephen was able to make changes to his life by turning his back on crime. A facinating read and well written book. Recommend highly especily if you would like to read about real life dangerous encounters or crime. Things thankfully can change
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Eye-opening, 14 Feb 2009
By M. L. Fletcher "The Fletch" (London, SW4) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
A brutal product of a brutal time in a lost city that the country if not time itself forgot. Although I found this an entertaining, enjoyable and even occasionally a funny read, intellectually I found it the lesser flip side story of the social Darwinistic Thatcherite neo-liberal experiment.

At times my heart bled for a society that drove a man disciplined enough to be a world champion fighter & intelligent enough to be a psychology graduate, to crime to provide for a family that he dearly loved, as he tried to find a way to prosper in the wastelands that Thatcher reduced inner-city Britain to.

Of course this experiment is still on-going today, only many have now seem to have given up on communities altogether reducing them to a Hobbesian state in which life is truly "Nasty, short & brutish" and I only hope Frenchman is successful in his brave crusade to rechannel the creative energies of his community to which he is providing 75% of all royalties (Increase the peace)

I would reject any suggestion Frenchman is racist. His ephihany is clearly explained on the final paragraph of P94. Any anti white sentiment pre-dating 1995 I feel is a sad product of the isolation and racism that once plagued this country and as anyone who lived through that time or any younger fans of Life on Mars & Ashes to Ashes must realise it is impossible to judge 1970's & 1980's racist mono-cultural Britain through its 2009 multi-cultural coloured lenses.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars The Devil
Exellent book, hard to put down. My family are fighting over who is next to read it!
Published 1 month ago by Mr. Royston Griffiths

2.0 out of 5 stars confused
what kind of drug dealer would allow himself to be "taxed". must have been at the bottom of the criminal ladder. Read more
Published 2 months ago by joker

4.0 out of 5 stars The Devil Graham Johnson
fully enjoyed reading this book, gave a insight into the underworld and why never to get involved , Good Reading
Published 2 months ago by Linda Jones

5.0 out of 5 stars simlpy the best
this is by far the best book ive read in a long time. hearing part of his story on tv a while ago doesnt even compare to what this book has to offer. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Ms. Natalie J. Littler

5.0 out of 5 stars the devil,true life crime book
must of been good as my husband sneaked upstairs with the book and did'nt appear until he'd finished it.
Published 3 months ago by Mrs. S. J. Thurland

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprisingly Good Read
To be honest, I expected this book to be very similar to 'Cocky'.
I thought it would be written, documenting French's life but was surprised to find that it is actually... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mr. S. Jones

1.0 out of 5 stars not impressed
i would like to write a review about this book, as all the other reviews seem interesting but i ordered it on 7th january and STILL not received it!!!!!! 20 january
Published 5 months ago by L. duffy

5.0 out of 5 stars Great!
Excellent book!

Unlike another book i recently read on a similar subject this is a well written book with some great stories of life amongst gangland britain... Read more
Published 11 months ago by E. V. Croft

3.0 out of 5 stars Same old self serving story
Read quite a lot of these style of books and they all seem to have pretty much the same lines,ie us real gangsters,us real hard men and its more like an ego trip thing however... Read more
Published 12 months ago by rocky marciano

5.0 out of 5 stars superb read
I don't know about you but normally when I read a book of this sort involving violence, and organised crime. Read more
Published 15 months ago by stephen

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