Get It Now King Of Heists: The Sensational Bank Robbery Of 1878 That Shocked America Engineered By J. North Conway Released Through EPub

researched, peppered with quotes from primary sources mostly the newspapers of the day, and engrossing, George Leslie was a fascinating character, someone who altered the course of history, and well deserving of such a comprehensive biography, Not sure why so many people are upset with this book, Yes, the title of the book is apt and the subtitle, not so much, If you're nothing more than a slobbering true crime fanatic you may find some of the peripheral Gilded Age details less intriguing, but if you have any general appreciation for American history you'll likely find most of the anecdotes and interleaving characters fascinating.
Would have given this a,if possible the reader charges of narratorial overrepetition are at least deserved, This book is supposedly aboutrobbery of the Manhattan Savings Institution, I would estimate no more than twenty pages are devoted to that specific topic instead, the book broadly follows the bank robbery career of George Leslie, who masterminded many bank robberies in thes.


This book desperately needed a good editor, one who believed that the average reader didn't need a brief reminder of who each and every character was every time they were mentioned.
It's not uncommon for a paragraph to be devoted to introducing a character on one page, and then on the very next page for some of that introduction to be repeated the next time said character is mentioned.
This was infuriating, and if it had been eliminated this book would probably only have been two thirds the length,

And then there's the organization, The book is generally laid out in chronological order, except occasionally events far in the future are mentioned in passing, There are many paragraphs which don't seem to really fit in at all, instead being things that the author apparently found interesting,

And then there's the question of facts, Reading this book, one gets the impression that Conway took many liberties, Several alternative explanations of key events are mentioned in passing at the end of the book,

Parts of this book were interesting it would have made a really interestingpage magazine article, But apage novel No, I picked this up as sort of an "in between reads" amusement, fortunately without much in the way of expectations, It's not that it's written poorly or that the content is uninteresting this could've been a page turner, It is the story of George Leslie, a well bred Cincinnati architect, who moves to NYC in his mid thirties, befriends many among New York's upper crust society, and inmasterminds a robbery of the Manhattan Savings Institute.
It even seems to have been fairly thoroughly researched, though some of which I judge from other reader reviews may be of questionable accuracy, So what's the problem Redundancy, for one thing, As has been noted in some other reader reviews, every second or third page contains a rehash of background information which has already been provided relative to characters, places or events.
This occurs with some frequency and becomes annoying within the firstor so pages, Some fairly basic editing along these lines probably would have cut the length of the book bypages, The other problem is with the fictionalized accounts of various episodes and details, From what I could tell when I pulled the book off the library shelf, it was not designated as historical fiction, Yet lengthy portions of the narrative contain what could only be products of Conway's imagination, It isn't that these are ill conceived, it's that they aren't prefaced by "It is easy to imagine, . . " or some similar qualifying language, This is an interesting story and if I came across a more sophisticated and less romanticized account of Leslie and the heist, I'd probably read it, This was definitely an Erik Larson / "Devil in the White City" wannabe, and it failed miserably, The writing wasn't great, and it desperately needed footnotes, While there's a source list in the back, other than newspapers articles, nothing was directly sourced in the text,

Honestly, I read the Wikipedia page about the bank robbery and returned the book to the librarypages in, While I would have liked to have known more about the story, I'm glad I didn't spend the month or so it would have taken me to slog through a notveryinteresting book.
Erik Larson has a gift: he can take an historical event and someone who participated, and intertwine the two into a fascinating story, Many other authors are trying to emulate Larson's style, but, unfortunately for the readers, I have yet to find one who succeeds, Conway is one of these,

Repetitive and cyclical in all the wrong ways, Conway intrigues us but doesn't follow through, Where was his editor Or, if this is the edited version, perhaps the publisher should have passed, Conway drops interesting tidbits but fails to fill in the details,

The basic facts are interesting, and I don't want back the hours I spent with this book, Still, I can't recommend it, A history text might give just as many details in a shorter time, Sometimes reality is better than fiction, and sometimes it falls a little flat, King of Heists is a breezy read about a lost era of robber barons and gentlemen thieves, but the author uses so many extensive quotes from newspapers of the day that his own account is sometimes lost in the antiquated verbiage.
And the ending feels anticlimactic, though that's not completely the author's fault, given the facts of the story, No, non, nyet, nein, . now you have the idea of my opinion of this book, which seems to be shared with other reviewers, The sad part is that there is probably a good story here but trying to find it will shatter your nerves,

George Leslie was a master criminal whose specialty was bank robbery, He spent months, and sometimes years planning the perfect heists and got away with them without anyone suspecting this sophisticated manabouttown who lived in high style in NYC, An excellent basis for an informative look at one of the smartest of crooks, But the author missed the boat with his approach, which by the way, barely touches on the robbery of the title, I'm not sure I've ever read a story that was so repetitive, How many times do we have to be told that Leslie lived in the Fifth Avenue Hotel, that he was handsome, and had good manners, The author thought that repeating this about every four pages was sufficient, Additionally,for no apparent reason there were countless pages of information on people who were incidental or not connected in any way to Mr, Leslie's life. And these are only some of the issues that made me want to take two aspirin and lie down for a while!

I can't believe I actually finished this book.
Avoid it like the plague!! I was very excited to read this book and the subject seemed interesting, It has taken me several months to finish this book which is onlypages! and I was disappointed with it, I was hoping for some drama and all I got was a long winded explanation of culture barriors and a refresher on the robber barons, Perhaps its because I am a genealogist, but I was hoping for more on his George Lesliefamily and his day to day life, This skipped over most of that and dryly documented his preparations for each burglary, The burglaries themselves were glossed over, George Leslie was very detailed in his research and I feel like that should have been the focus, Parts were interesting but I probably wouldn't recommend it, Its hard to decide what to make of J, North Conways King of the Heists, Is it a historical novel or is it historical fiction Much in it is genuine history, but there is also much that is questionable or outright false, Of course, within the genre of the historical novel its permissible to fill the gaps in the record with plausible dialog or even add fictionalized characters if they remain unnamed.
Nevertheless, a first rate historical novel should adhere to some rules of accuracy, No portrayal of any person or event should contradict known facts, Only when all evidence is lacking is the author justified in “constructing history, ”

I bought the book thinking that it was straight history, As I began to read I learned that its main character was George Leonidas Leslie, the mastermind of the greatest bank robbery in American history, It was not until I reached pagethat I began to question the accuracy of the book, Here Conway wrote, “In, Linus Yale Jr, invented the modern combination lock, ” As a collector of locks, I immediately knew this was an error, Yale is famous for his invention of the keyoperated, pin tumbler cylinder lock, I checked a list of Yales patents in Thomas F, Hennessys Locks and Lockmakers of America, No patents for Linus Yale Jr, were listed for the year, This was a “red flag, ” If Conway can just makeup a fact here, could there be other places where he also played loose with the facts

I only had to read a little further to see more questionable material.
J. North Conway states that George Leslie invented a little tin wheel that he dubbed “the little joker, ” Its purpose was to reveal the combination of the safe or vault, To use it, he needed to first gain entrance into the bank prior to the burglary and place the device inside the dial of the combination lock, Later he would return to retrieve the contraption, With the combination revealed, he now could plan a robbery that would be quick, safe, and not draw any attention,

I wondered how he could remove the combination dial, because it cant just be screwed off, Its attached from the inside of the armored door by a spindle, Later I found a description of the dial being pried off using a specially designed file, Conway added the detail that the surrounding area was covered with cheesecloth so no scratches would be left that would be a tipoff to the tampering, If true, how was the severed dial reattached so that it would not alert the bank authorities A dab of glue Tape

Safe and vault manufacturers reinforced the dial area to foil a safecracking technique known as “punching.
” Punching consisted of knocking off the dial and then inserting a long punch to drive the spindle into the safe, To prevent

this, the spindles were hardened using high grade, heattreated steel, and made driveproof by being made larger at the front end of the door than at the back.


Most of the books listed in Conways bibliography are general works on the history of New York City during the Gilded Age or provide background information about important personalities of the period such as Boss Tweed, “Jubilee Jim” Fisk and Jay Gould.
The earliest title to address the topic of bank robberies was Thomas Byrnes Professional Criminals of America, Inspector Byrnes, Chief of Detectives, only mentioned George Leslie in passing, and he was not given a prominent role in any of the burglaries, However, in a following book, Recollections of a New York Chief of Policeby George W, Walling, George Leslie is placed in the forefront as the “brains” and leader of the bank robberies,

Recollections of a New York Chief of Police is Conways chief source of information about George Leslies background and criminal career, but how trustworthy is the book In his Introduction, George Walling said: “The incidents narrated in this volume are those under my personal observation, and although they may differ somewhat from reports published at the time of the occurrences, or generally accepted traditions, yet the official records will bear me out, and be a complete vindication of my truthfulness.
” With no bibliography, notes or references to the official record, the reader must simply have faith in all that Walling alleges,

Wallings book provides what appears to be a wealth of information about George Leonidas Leslies background and genealogy, From it we learn that George Leslies father emigrated from England inwith his wife, His wifes name was Miss Rodh, but Walling does not reveal the fathers name, Walling also stated that Georges father first settled in western New York before going to Cincinnati, and that George Leslie was born in the United States, Walling does not give a date of birth or even reveal whether George was born in New York or Ohio, Doesnt it seem strange that Walling withholds all information that might allow another researcher to follow George Leslies trail

Conway states in his Introduction, “I have made every attempt to not portray Leslie as heroic in any way.
” So the true and unembellished facts, according to Conway, are that the debonair and dashing George Leslie was “tall, handsomelean fit and muscularcleanshaven, with a cleft in his strong chin.
” Also welleducated, sophisticated with “exquisite taste in clothes” and “impeccable manners,” he never associated with the lower rungs of the criminal class except for strictly business, I cant see that there is much more Conway could have said if he did decide to portray Leslie as heroic, There are no known pictures of George Leslie, Conways portrayal is based on Wallings description, However, Walling described Leslie as being “somewhat short in stature, ” I suppose Conway thought tall sounded better than short,

King of Heists is not entirely about bank robberies or George Leslie, Much space is devoted to other people of the era, Not everything in his book is fiction, Here is the problem. How can one be sure what is true and what is not Regardless of how much is true, there is enough false and questionable material to warrant caution, I dont wish to deter anyone from reading King of Heists, Conway is a good writer, but his book should be read for entertainment not history,

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