The Crime of the Century: How the Brinks Robbers Stole Millions and the Hearts of Boston by Stephanie Schorow
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(Hardcover)
- Pub. Date: December 2007
- 242pp
- Sales Rank: 164,071
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: December 2007
- Publisher: Commonwealth Editions
- Format: Hardcover, 242pp
- Sales Rank: 164,071
- ISBN-13: 9781933212548
- ISBN: 1933212543
Synopsis
On January 17, 1950, seven robbers in Halloween masks walked into a counting room of the Brink's armored car garage on Prince Street in Boston and walked out with $2.5 million in cash, checks, and securities. It was the largest robbery in U.S. history to date. Yet not a shot was fired, not a drop of blood was shed. The robbers simply said, "This is a stick-up," before gagging and tying up the guards. Within minutes they escaped into the night with bags stuffed with money, leaving almost no clues behind. For six years, authorities worked to crack the case. Just before the statute of limitations ran out, one of the robbers, who believed he was cheated out of his share, ratted out his comrades. The subsequent trial captivated a city, as details of the caper finally came to light. Yet most of the loot was never found, and over the years Bostonians have speculated on where it went. Even after the case was solved and the culprits were jailed, the Brink's robbery continued to fascinate the public. How did a ragtag group of petty criminals- Irish, Italian, and one Jew-somehow pull off a nearly perfect crime? Hollywood made two movies that portrayed the robbers as working-class heroes. A closer examination of the robbery, however, reveals a darker side. What first appeared to be a daring, bloodless caper turned deadly when the lure of the cash and the fear of imprisonment turned friend against friend. Soon the criminal code of silence was being enforced with the blast of a machine gun. To this day mystery and intrigue surround the Brink's robbery even as it continues to grip the imagination of Boston. The Crime of the Century is a fascinating caper and a portrait of Boston in the postwarera.
Boston Globe
The petty criminals who robbed the Brink's garage in Boston's North End nearly 60 years ago are among the city's favorite folk heroes. Author Stephanie Schorow, formerly a reporter at the Boston Herald, enlivens her book with new material from police archives and her own hunt for the money still missing.
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Biography
Stephanie Schorow is a former reporter for the Boston Herald and a freelance writer focusing on topics of regional and national interest. She is the author of Boston On Fire: A History of Fires and Firefighting in Boston and The Cocoanut Grove Fire. She lives in Medford, Massachusetts.
Customer Reviews
Crime of the Century: How the Brinks Robbers Stole Millions and the Hearts of Bostonby Anonymous
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June 12, 2008: 'This is Brink's. We are cleaned out. We are cleaned out.' That's how the world first learned of what was then the largest heist in U.S. history - 350 pounds of money was taken by a gang of masked bandits that managed to pull the job without hurting anyone (not until afterward, anyway, when a series of mysterious deaths in the underworld left some to wonder). The many students of this immortal crime and spectacular trial are well served by this most recent retelling. Newly opened police archives lend new detail, dozens of photos are included, and the author is a superb storyteller. Her prose is carefully polished, the descriptions are evocative, and her portraits of the inveterate thieves and hustlers who did it is deft and engaging. The Brink's guards, suspected of involvement, were 'grilled to the point of trauma.' The author captures the public reaction so well ('What was not to admire? No one was hurt. The guards were shaken up, sure, but not a shot was fired. And Brink's -- what was Brink's but a Chicago-based company that didn't live up to its reputation as a bastion of well-oiled, fortress-tight security? Brink's was the real culprit.') And any author who can manage to make the history of Brink's interesting deserves a medal. This was a meticulously planned heist with such shocking results. The newspapers pulled out their biggest type. And despite the fact that the subsequent trial was 'an all-men show' -- the first great criminal trial without sex or romance, 'without even a woman's shadow' (Boston Post), the theft has garnered a fortune for more than the gang who did it. As the author states, 'If you lined up all those who profited from the million-dollar Brink's heist, the robbers would probably stand at the end of the line. For decades reporters, writers, and moviemakers have seen green in the dramatization of the robbery.' Now Stephanie Schorow can add her own name to that list, but unlike the original band of thugs, she deserves her reward. To top this book, a future author would have to find the still-missing loot -- and even then would have a more awesome challenge trying to best the storytelling skills on display here.
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