Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
I want to read the book!
All characters reduced
Glasgow's Godfather - The Astonishing Story of Walter Norval the City's First Crime Boss - cover

We are sorry! The publisher (or author) gave us the instruction to take down this book from our catalog. But please don't worry, you still have more than 500,000 other books you can enjoy!

Glasgow's Godfather - The Astonishing Story of Walter Norval the City's First Crime Boss

Robert Jeffrey

Publisher: Black & White Publishing

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

Walter Norval was a man marked by destiny to be a career criminal in one of Britain's hardest cities. As a boy he grew up in a world of illegal betting, violent canal bank pitch-and-toss schools, sleazy dance halls, brothels and bars where the denizens of the slums in the north side of Glasgow slaked gargantuan thirsts and plotted murder and mayhem. Before he had reached his teens, close relatives had died as blood was spilled in the streets. As a youngster he ran 'messages' for the toughest gangsters in the city and stood guard over the pots of cash in illegal gambling schools. It was a remarkable apprenticeship, dangerous and sometimes deadly. It honed a latent toughness and a talent for lawbreaking that saw him emerge in the Seventies as the first of a succession of Glasgow godfathers. Dressed in pinstriped style, he controlled his foot soldiers with fearsome fists and planned robberies with the attention to detail of a military general. He organised various Glasgow fighting factions into a single gang, which pulled off a spectacular series of robberies. But, unlike his successors, he abhorred drugs and drug-dealing. And, in a remarkable twist, he joined the anti-drugs war in later life. His story - told by the best-selling crime historian Robert Jeffrey - provides a fascinating insight into the making of a criminal mastermind, from boy to man.
Available since: 05/21/2012.

Other books that might interest you

  • Masquerade - A True Story of Seduction Compulsion and Murder - cover

    Masquerade - A True Story of...

    Lowell Cauffiel

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    In the exclusive suburb of Grosse Pointe, Alan Canty was a respected psychologist, with clients drawn from wealthy families across Detroit. But at night, he ventured into the city's seedy south side, where, under the name Dr. Al Miller, he met with prostitutes. One girl in particular caught Dr. Al's eye: a skinny teenage drug addict named Dawn, an ex-honor student who had fallen under the spell of a pimp named Lucky. Canty became their sugar daddy, spending thousands to buy them clothes, cars, and gifts. But when the money ran out, Canty's luck went with it-and he was soon found hacked to pieces, his body scattered across Michigan. In this thrilling true crime tale, Cauffiel shows what happens when deception turns fatal.
    Show book
  • Killer Genius - The Bizarre Case of the Homicidal Scholar - cover

    Killer Genius - The Bizarre Case...

    C.J. March

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    He’s a doctor whose patients have a way of dying; a lawyer, who uses his skills to squirm out of criminal convictions. He’s a scholar, but other scholars have no idea what he’s talking about. He’s a family man, but one day, his wife and baby disappear forever. Only two things are clear: Edward Rulloff is a mystery, and everywhere he goes, death and destruction follow. 
 
While the criminal justice system has its hands full trying to keep and convict Edward Rulloff, the world will argue whether he’s a genius, a scam artist or a madman. Even Mark Twain has an opinion.
    Show book
  • Summary: Empire of Pain - The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe: Key Takeaways Summary & Analysis - cover

    Summary: Empire of Pain - The...

    Brook Bryant

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Disclaimer: This is not the official book; it is a summary & it does not accompany the official	 
Delve into 'Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty' by Patrick Radden Keefe, a riveting exploration of ambition, power, and the shadows of an influential family. Keefe offers a meticulously researched chronicle of the Sackler family, whose vast fortune was built on the bedrock of the opioid crisis. This summary unveils the intricate web of their rise to power, their role in proliferating OxyContin, and the moral ambiguities that marked their empire's expansion. 
Witness a family's relentless pursuit of wealth juxtaposed against the backdrop of countless lives devastated by addiction. With our concise rendition of Keefe's groundbreaking work, navigate the hidden corridors of big pharma, corporate machinations, and a dynasty's intricate dance with ethics.
    Show book
  • Murderer's Gulch - Carnage in the Catskills - cover

    Murderer's Gulch - Carnage in...

    C.J. March

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Don't turn your back on her. Don't even blink. She may be crazy, but Lizzie Halliday is strong, she moves fast, and she's a stone cold killer. When famed journalist Nellie Bly interviews the woman the New York Times called "The Worst Woman on Earth," she has no idea how easy it would be for Lizzie Halliday to make Bly her next victim.  
 
In the peaceful Catskills, Halliday dispatches husbands, neighbors and peddlers by fire, poisoning and gunshot. The bloody death count at the Halliday farm earns it the name, "Murderer's Gulch." But even after she's arrested and committed to an insane asylum, Lizzie Halliday will kill again. 
    Show book
  • The Escape of Jack the Ripper - The Truth About the Cover-up and His Flight from Justice - cover

    The Escape of Jack the Ripper -...

    Jonathan Hainsworth, Christine...

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    A MYSTERY SOLVEDIn 1888, five gruesome murders shocked the civilized public. A bloodthirsty killer was on the loose in the slums of London. The world was on the lookout for Jack the Ripper.Scotland Yard never found their man—or so they said publicly. The police knew the killer's identity but concealed it to save the ruling class from embarrassment.The Escape of Jack the Ripper reveals how British elites manipulated the public to protect one of their own. Through meticulous research, Jonathan Hainsworth and Christine Ward-Agius have uncovered the killer's identity.In The Escape of Jack the Ripper, you'll learn: how a fit of madness transformed a reputable gentleman into a savage murderer; that the killer was caught literally red-handed but talked his way out of police custody; about the decades-long cover-up by the press and the police to protect a well-to-do family's reputation; about the harrowing social conditions in which the murders took place; and how the social privileges enjoyed by the ruling class led to a miscarriage of justice. A thoroughly researched and gripping tale, The Escape of Jack the Ripper solves the great Whitechapel murder mystery once and for all.
    Show book
  • One Day In August - Ian Fleming Enigma and the Deadly Raid on Dieppe - cover

    One Day In August - Ian Fleming...

    David O'Keefe

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    In less than six hours in August 1942, nearly 1,000 British, Canadian, and American commandos died in the French port of Dieppe in an operation that, for decades, seemed to have no real purpose. Was it a dry-run for D-Day, or perhaps a gesture by the Allies to placate Stalin’s impatience for a second front in the west? Canadian historian David O’Keefe uses hitherto classified intelligence archives to prove that this catastrophic and apparently futile raid was, in fact, a mission set up by Ian Fleming of British Naval Intelligence as part of a “pinch” policy designed to capture material relating to the four-rotor Enigma Machine that would permit codebreakers like Alan Turing at Bletchley Park to turn the tide of the Second World War.
    Show book