Killing Charlie

"Killing Charlie" charts the extraordinary rise and spectacular fall of Charlie Wilson, the most powerful villain to emerge from the ultimate British crime of the twentieth century: "The Great Train Robbery." Wilson moved on from armed robbery to become an all-powerful figure in the drug underworld. But his life of greed and corruption came to a violent end when his rivals decided to wipe him off the face of the earth--with the tacit approval of Spanish, British, and US drug enforcement agencies. Meticulously researched, "Killing Charlie" pulls the reader into Wilson's bizarre, sordid, crime-filled world--one that took him from the mean streets of south London to even harsher prison corridors, and from a quiet life in small-town Canada to the heated, manic, cocaine-fuelled Costa del Sol. Containing interviews with many of Wilson's former associates, the book also reveals how Wilson was feared by many other criminals; how his love of pretty women almost cost him his life; and how he desperately tried to "retire," only to discover that gangsters never rest in peace.