The Last Good Heist: The Inside Story of The Biggest Single Payday in the Criminal History of the Northeast

by Wayne Worcester, Randall Richard, Tim White

Overview

On Aug. 14, 1975, eight daring thieves ransacked 148 massive safe-deposit boxes at a secret bank used by organized crime, La Cosa Nostra, and its associates in Providence, R.I. The crooks fled with duffle bags crammed full of cash, gold, silver, stamps, coins, jewels and high-end jewelry. The true value of the loot has always been kept secret, partly because it was ill-gotten to begin with, and partly because there was plenty of incentive to keep its true worth out of the limelight. It's one thing for authorities to admit they didn't find a trace of goods worth from $3 million to $4 million, and entirely another when what was at stake was more accurately valued at about $30 million, the equivalent of $120 million today. It was the biggest single payday in the criminal history of the Northeast. Nobody came close, not the infamous James "Whitey" Bulger, not John "The Dapper Don" Gotti, not even the Brinks or Wells Fargo robbers. The heist was bold enough and big enough to rock the underworld to its core, and it left La Cosa Nostra in the region awash in turmoil that still reverberates more than forty years later. Last Good Heist is the inside story of the robbery and its aftermath.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781493009596
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	08/01/2016
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	240,440
Product dimensions:	8.40(w) x 5.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Tim White is a prize-winning investigative reporter for WPRI-TV, the CBS affiliate in Providence; Randall Richard is a former investigative reporter and international correspondent for the Providence Journal and national reporter at the Associated Press, and Wayne Worcester is a former reporter and editor at the Providence Journal, novelist, essayist and now a journalism professor at the University of Connecticut.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Raymond Patriarca - a mob boss more frightening and more powerful than Whitey Bulger on his best day. I thought I knew all there was to know about this major player in organized crime history but I was wrong - dead wrong. Now comes The Last Good Heist, a classic gangster yarn from Tim White, Randall Richard and Wayne Worcester. Together, these authors weave a story that is too unbelievable to be true. But it is. Through exhaustive research and a wildly entertaining narrative, White, Richard and Worcester show us how the once powerful New England Mafia was destroyed to rubble from within. The Last Good Heist is a damn good ride." -Casey Sherman, New York Times Bestselling Author of “The Finest Hours,” “Boston Strong” and “Animal: The Bloody Rise and Fall of the Mob's Most Feared Assassin.” *** “An incredibly entertaining true crime saga that catapults you into a world of incorrigible thieves, powerful Mafiosi and cunning cops. This masterfully written and thoroughly researched book by White, Richard and Worcester, three journalists who know the story best, makes you feel like you are there in mid-70s Providence, RI, rubbing elbows with the crooks and ducking for cover. A vivid account and a great, great read.” -Shelley Murphy, co-author of New York Times Bestseller “Whitey Bulger.” *** “The Last Good Heist is an adrenaline rush, a page-turning true-crime thriller that takes the reader inside one of the greatest Mafia capers of all time. The all-star cast of mobsters, stickup artists, career scammers and screw-ups who scheme to loot a wise guys’ secret vault steps right out of Goodfellas and The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. I didn’t want it to end. I picture the Deuce, one of the all-time great characters, still on the lam. And I wonder about the lost treasure that’s never been found — $30 million of cash, gold, silver, diamonds, emeralds, rubies — the stuff that underworld dreams are made of.” -Mike Stanton, bestselling author of “The Prince of Providence: The True Story of Buddy Cianci, America’s Most Notorious Mayor, Some Wiseguys and the Feds.” *** “The authors offer a richly detailed account of the robbery itself, the criminal and personal histories of the men who pulled it off, and the stupid mistakes and the investigative tactics that eventually brought some, but not all of them, to justice.” -Bruce DeSilva, former Providence journalist and Edgar Award-winning author of the Mulligan crime novels

Editorial Reviews

09/12/2016
This limp account of a now obscure robbery in 1975 Providence, R.I., will raise questions for readers about its reliability. The crime at the center of the book involves the theft of the contents of 148 safety deposit boxes concealed at Hudson Fur Storage. On the afternoon of Aug. 14th, a group of eight gun-wielding thieves entered the building, secured the employees, and made off with the equivalent today of $140 million in jewels, rare coins, stamps, and cash, none of which was ever recovered. The narrative provides the background to the crime, including the criminal history of Robert "Deuce" Dussault, the "career thug" who orchestrated the event. By 1975, Dussault had already spent half of his life in jail. Despite this, the authors treat him as an admirable antihero (his "major assets are an outdated sense of derring-do, fast hands, and a quick lip"). The acknowledgments section at the book's end reveals that Dussault provided "countless" hours of interviews, and the authors make no effort to explain what steps, if any, they took to verify his version of events. The narrative devotes most of its space to atmospheric details and stylized prose, prioritizing the thrill of the story over its credibility. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly