Paul Ferris

Reg McKay

Murder, gunrunning, drug trafficking, kneecappings - Paul Ferris has been accused of many things in his life, some true, some not. What's not in dispute is that he spent twenty-five years as one of Britain's most feared gangsters. Out of prison and straight for five years, Paul still hasn't forgotten the common thugs and big-time players that surrounded him or the world of violence, fear and uneasy alliances that he inhabited with them. Now Paul Ferris recounts the stories of a tough existence that nobody knows better. The brutality you'd expect, the strangeness you might not. There's the man wanted by everyone from the Old Bailey to Glasgow High Court but who might just be a figment of the cops' imagination; the rise of women in the underworld, with unheard-of power and loaded pistols in thigh holsters; or the betrayed Manchester face who visited a gang's club and sprayed it with bullets, only to become the gang's hero overnight.

It Takes One to Know One

Villains

Tam McGraw was one of Glasgow's most dangerous gangsters. He rose from poverty in the city's East End to amass a vast fortune from crime and, when he died in 2007, his empire stretched from Glasgow to the Canaries. This is the incredible untold story of 'the Licensee'.

The Incredible Untold Story of Tam "The Licensee" McGraw

McGraw

On Glasgow's meanest streets life started well for the young Paul Ferris. How did he become Glasgow's most feared gangster, deemed a risk to national security? Arthur Thompson, Godfather of the crime world and senior partner of the Krays, recruited young Ferris as a bagman, debt collector and equaliser. Feared for his capacity for extreme violence, respected for his intelligence, Ferris was the Godfather's heir apparent. But when gang warfare broke, underworld leaders traded in flesh, colluding with their partners - the police. Disgusted, Ferris left the Godfather and stood alone. They gave him weeks to live. While Ferris was caged in Barlinnie Prison's segregation unit accused of murdering Thompson's son, Fatboy, his two friends were shot dead the night before the funeral and grotesquely displayed in a car on the cortége's route. Acquitted against all the odds, Ferris moved on, determined to make an honest living. They would not let him. The National Crime Squad, MI5, the police and two of the country's most powerful gangsters saw to that. A maximum-security prisoner, Ferris is known as 'Lucky' because he is still alive. This is one man's unique insight into Britain's crime world and the inextricable web of corruption - a revealing story of official corruption and unholy alliances.

The Ferris Conspiracy

KILLERS, CROOKS AND CONS chronicles the astonishing crimes that horrified 20th-century Scotland. Taking each decade in turn, Reg McKay tells the true tales of the crimes that shook the nation, often the world. And these crimes will shock you still. From serial killers to armed mobsters and poisoners to cops who killed, KILLERS, CROOKS AND CONS takes you from Glasgow to Edinburgh, Aberdeen to Dundee and from the Highlands to the Borders. As well as well-known cases like the world's first serial killer Peter Manuel who was hanged for the murder of seven people, wealthy landowner Max Garvie whose kinky parties led to his murder and the strange case of the death of SNP activist Willie McRae, Reg McKay tells the story of many of Scotland's less well-known but equally fascinating cases - including a police showdown with armed members of the IRA, the murder of a wealthy socialite and a committed Christian who went to extraordinary lengths to cover up his part in the brutal murder of his wife. KILLERS, CROOKS AND CONS is Scotland's very own criminal record from a century of shame.

Scotland's Crimes of the Century

Killers, Crooks and Cons

It used to be thought that no single person could rule the mean streets of Glasgow. Arthur Thompson proved this to be wrong. From an ordinary working-class family, Thompson started out as a bouncer and minder. Hard yet bright, he learned quickly. Cross him and you'd be scarred. Cheat him and he nailed you to the floor, crucifixionstyle. The gangsters of Glasgow thought it couldn't get any worse - it did. For forty years, Thompson ruled Glasgow and there came a time when his capacity for violence became so boundless that people would pray to be crucified. This fully revised edition of The Last Godfather visits places no law-abiding person has been. The gunrunning, murders, drug dealing and torture are all still there but there's much more - atrocities like how he improved on crucifixion as a means of revenge, how he created Europe's Tartan Mafia, how he invented concrete boots as a failsafe way of disposing of enemies' corpses. Then there are the ways he has had an impact on the lives and, more importantly, deaths of others - one man killed by a sniper, another kidnapped in London and tortured for days in Glasgow. Thompson died of natural causes but his influence didn't stop at his grave - which, incidentally, was deliberately left unmarked in case someone he'd had a run-in with decided to dig him up and wreak some kind of horrible revenge. This new edition includes previously unexplored aspects of Thompson's legacy and investigates the reasons there could never be another gang lord as all-powerful as Arthur Thompson - why he was destined to become The Last Godfather.

The Life and Crimes of Arthur Thompson

The Last Godfather

Reg MacKay

Schitterend boek over Arthur Thompson, Glasgows meest roemruchte godfather en zijn weg naar de top van de misdaad Hoe wordt een jochie dat in een gezagsgetrouw nest opgroeit de meest gevreesde maffiafiguur van Glasgow? In de grimmige wijk Springburn waar hij in 1931 werd geboren keek Arthur Thompson om zich heen en zag het alcoholisme, het huiselijk geweld, de ziekte, de ellende. Dat nooit. De laatste godfather verhaalt over de man die niet terugschrok voor de grootste gruweldaden, daarvan schatrijk werd maar zijn leven lang op de kleintjes lette. Die loyaal was aan de Ierse protestanten maar flink aan ze verdiende met aftandse wapens. Die niet zoals zijn collega-boeven in de jaren zeventig neerstreek op de Costa Brava maar liever met zijn vrouw Rita in zijn rijtjeshuis bleef wonen. Die inlichtingendienst MI5 van informatie voorzag maar tegelijk een loer wilde draaien. Misdaadauteur Reg McKay beschrijft niet alleen zijn leven maar geeft ook een prachtig en humoristich inkijkje in de misdaadwereld in Schotland en Londen in de vorige eeuw. Indrukwekkend, soms gruwelijk, vaak komisch en altijd boeiend.

De laatste Godfather

Glenn Lucas

The Arlene Fraser Case

Murdered Or Missing?

Armed Candy is the true story of one woman's struggle for survival on Britain's meanest streets. Kay has spent her whole life trying to escape. Sexually abused by her grandmother, she pleaded to return to her mother's care. But instead of finding a safe haven, Kay entered a world of drug abuse, swinging and dabbling in the occult. Although still a small child, she was soon buying drugs for her mother and being moved out of her bed as orgies ensued in her home. When she tried to escape, she ended up in a violent marriage, from which she fled in fear of her life. Turning to her mother for help, she was tricked into prostitution, her own mother acting much like a pimp. Kay became a high-class call girl, but then, through a chance meeting, she got involved with the most dangerous criminal gang in Glasgow. Women associated with such gangs are often seen as decorative arm candy, but Kay was admitted to the inner core, where she became involved in making decisions of life and death. She fell in love with the gang's equaliser, a young man feared throughout the country, and together they formed a formidable partnership. But they were too successful, and when they appeared to threaten some powerful interests they had to be taken out. The day that Kay's lover was gunned down in broad daylight saw the beginning of a reign of death in the city, as the organised crime world became paranoid and turned in on itself. For Kay, it was the beginning of her way out.

A True-Life Story of Organised Crime

Armed Candy

Paul Ferris was one of Britain's most feared gangsters for twenty-five years. Now, in Villains, Ferris reveals the real inside story of the villains he met and worked with, the common thugs and big-time players that surrounded him and the world of violence and fear he lived in every day of his life. In Glasgow, London and Manchester, Paul Ferris knew and worked with the biggest gangsters in the UK - everyone from Arthur Thompson in Glasgow to the Addams family in London and Rab Carruthers in Manchester. Villains is the story of the hard lives of hard men by someone who knows. There's jewel heists, crime families, new stories about Glasgow's Godfather, Arthur Thompson, a secret meeting with loyalist 'Mad Dog' Johnny Adair, the Glasgow hard man who loved bingo, and much more. And, when it comes to villains, it takes one to know one.

Reg McKay

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