Smash and Grab: Gangsters in the London Underworld 1920-60

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.