Northern Heist
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4.7 • 12 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
"Full of double and triple-crosses . . . Northern Heist’s deeds and details seem as real as a smashed kneecap, while its stopwatch tension, heightened by present-tense voice, is reminiscent of such classic caper films as 'Rififi' and 'The Asphalt Jungle."—The Wall Street Journal
A fast-paced, suspenseful thriller based on one of the biggest (and still unsolved) bank-robberies in history, written by a former IRA bank robber.
Nobody robs banks in Belfast without the IRA getting a cut -- not even former Provo James 'Ructions' O'Hare. But when word gets around O'Hare may be up to something, the pressure from the IRA begins.
Ructions' trusts his crack squad of former paramilitary compadres, and has full confidence in his audacious plan: To literally empty the biggest bank in Belfast by kidnapping the families of two employees - known as a "tiger" kidnapping -- in order to force them to help Ructions and his crew get into the bank's vault.
But keeping the plan -- and the money -- from the IRA is another plan entirely, one requiring all Ruction's cunning and skill.
In this stunning debut novel, as audacious and well-executed as Ructions' plan to rob the National Bank itself, Richard O'Rawe -- a former IRA bank robber himself - unleashes a story that will shock, surprise and thrill as he takes you on a white-knuckle ride through Belfast's criminal underbelly. Enter the deadly world of tiger kidnappings, kangaroo courts, money laundering, drug deals and double-crosses.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Former Irish Republican Army bank robber O'Rawe (Afterlives: The Hunger Strike and the Secret Offer That Changed Irish History) makes his fiction debut with a riveting crime thriller loosely based on the unsolved bank robbery that nearly undermined the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Veteran IRA heavy James "Ructions" O'Hare and his crime-boss uncle, Johnny "Panzer" O'Hare, secretly form a crew of ex-paramilitaries to rob the National Bank in Belfast, Northern Ireland. But that's not the hardest part; their plan to cross the IRA by not paying the mandatory 50 percent tax could put them in the ground if discovered. Bonds of family and faction are put to the ultimate test as IRA enforcers and local police search for suspects, and Ructions must use all of his cunning if he's to survive. O'Rawe channels both Elmore Leonard and Guy Ritchie in this heist thriller full of sharp twists and gritty dialogue, emerging with a style all his own. His reimagining of the real-life bank heist feels so authentic readers will hope he has a strong alibi. Ken Bruen fans won't want to miss this one.
