Where the Money Is
True Tales from the Bank Robbery Capital of the World
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
"With the style and pacing of a good novel...should become a standard in the genre."—Publishers Weekly
FBI Special Agent William J. Rehder, the man CBS News once described as "America's secret weapon in the war against bank robbers," chronicles the lives and crimes of bank robbers in today's Los Angeles who are as colorful and exciting as the legends of long ago. The mild-mannered antiques dealer who robbed more banks than anyone else in history. The modern Fagin who took a page out of Dickens and had children rob banks for him. The misfit bodybuilders who used a movie as a blueprint for a spree of violent robberies.
In a fast-paced, hard-edged style that reads like a novel, Where the Money Is carries us through these stories and more—all within a pistol shot of Hollywood, all true-life tales as vivid as anything on the big screen.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With the style and pacing of a good novel, Rehder portrays the great variety of bandits he pursued in his more than 30 years with the FBI, almost all of it in Los Angeles. Reaching a peak in 1992 of 2,641 hits, the number of bank heists in the City of Angels is surprising, as is the small take on most jobs, often under a thousand dollars. The numbers raise questions about what motivates people to go into robbery, and Rehder wisely spends more time discussing the bandits, their psychology and their MOs than he does the minutiae of law enforcement. In fact, he repeatedly describes the FBI strategy as hoping the guy pulls another job and screws up this time. Rehder focuses on five main subjects: the most prolific one-on-one bandit (when a single robber holds up a bank teller) in history, a gang leader who ran takeover jobs using mostly kids, an unapprehended group that tunneled into a Hollywood bank, a bank manager who helped her policeman boyfriend get more than $700,000, and a pair of loners who died in a North Hollywood shootout. He fattens the package with innumerable anecdotes from other heists, as variations on a theme and the pages turn quickly. Crime reporter Dillow is probably responsible for the gritty turns of phrase, but the book is entirely in the first person, and Rehder himself emerges from the beginning as a compelling and complex character. This should become a standard in the genre.
