'His story stands apart ... skilful enough to capture both the immediate excitement of crime and the dull price it so often extracts' Laurie Taylor, The Times

8 August, 1963; a railway track in Buckinghamshire. The moon shines clearly over Bruce Reynolds and sixteen other men robbing a train of its sacks of money. The Great Train Robbery has entered British folklore as one of the most audacious, and extraordinary, crimes of the twentieth century. The haul - #2,631,684 - is, in today's money, a staggering #26 million. Bruce Reynolds, the leader of the gang, was sentenced to 25 years in prison; even the Commissioner of the Met, Sir Robert Mark, thought that excessive.

Since leaving school in 1946, Bruce Reynolds dreamt of adventure: minor crimes at first, small-scale smash-and-grabs, but soon he was running a top-class firm. Although they committed a succession of lucrative, high-profile robberies, it wasn't nearly enough. Bruce Reynolds wanted more.

The Autobiography of a Thief is the story of a professional criminal, and the murky world around him - it's funny, touching, illuminating, and shocking.

'Far superior in style and narrative to the standard self-serving criminal memoir' Duncan Campbell, Guardian

Synopsis
Bruce Reynolds' life of crime began with a small-scale smash-and-grabs and led to a succession of lucrative, high-profile robberies - but it was on the empty early-morning fields of middle England that he found his Eldorado. In the early hours of 8 August 1963, he and 16 others robbed the Glasgow-to-Euston mail train of #2,631,684 - in today's money, #26 million. The Great Train Robbery was the most infamous robbery in British history, and Bruce Reynolds' account of his life covers every detail of the crime and its aftermath, up to the present day.