A riveting and frequently hilarious insider account of one of the twentieth century’s most outrageous capers. On the evening of January 17, 1950, armed robbers wearing Captain Marvel masks entered the Brink’s Armored Car building in Boston, Massachusetts. They walked out less than an hour later with more than $2.7 million in cash and securities. It was a brazen and expertly executed theft that captured the imaginations of millions of Americans and baffled the FBI and local law enforcement officials. But what appeared on the surface to be the perfect crime was, in fact, the end result of a mind-boggling series of mistakes, miscalculations, and missteps. The men behind the masks were not expert bank robbers but a motley crew of small-time crooks who bumbled their way into a record-breaking payday and managed to elude the long arm of the law for six years. New York Times–bestselling author Noel Behn tape-recorded nearly one thousand hours of interviews with the surviving robbers, including motormouthed mastermind Tony Pino, a character so colorful he might have been dreamed up by a Hollywood screenwriter, to tell the uncensored story of the heist forever known as “the Great Brink’s Robbery.” Fun and suspenseful from first page to last, Behn’s true-crime classic was the basis for The Brink’s Job (1978), the Academy Award–nominated film directed by William Friedkin and starring Peter Falk and Peter Boyle.

This multivolume resource is the most extensive reference of its kind, offering a comprehensive summary of the misdeeds, perpetrators, and victims involved in the most memorable crime events in American history. This unique reference features the most famous crimes and trials in the United States since colonial times. Three comprehensive volumes focus on the most notorious and historically significant crimes that have influenced America's justice system, including the life and wrongdoing of Lizzie Borden, the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, the killing spree and execution of Ted Bundy, and the Columbine High School shootings. Organized by case, the work includes a chronology of major unlawful deeds, fascinating primary source documents, dozens of sidebars with case trivia and little-known facts, and an overview of crimes that have shaped criminal justice in the United States over several centuries. Each of the 500 entries provides information about the crime, the perpetrators, and those affected by the misconduct, along with a short bibliography to extend learning opportunities. The set addresses a breadth of famous trials across American history, including the Salem witch trials, the conviction of Sacco and Vanzetti, and the prosecution of O. J. Simpson.

The harsh discipline of Puritan life bred the hard-bitten and hard-working people of Massachusetts, but did it also breed a unique type of criminal? This book explores the headline crimes of the state to find an answer.

The Comprehensive Film Guide to Amateur Sleuth, Detective & Police Stories of Film and Television. A look at the writers, Private Invetigators, Lawyers, and the Hollywood Personal that produced them, and other interesting stories that have Mystery and Intrigue.

Today, Americans look back nostalgically at the 1950s, an era when television and rock and roll revolutionized popular culture, and Vietnam, race riots, drug abuse, and protest movements were still in the future. With homes in the suburbs, new automobiles, and the latest electrical gadgets, many Americans believed they were the most prosperous people on earth. Yet the era was tainted by the fear of thermonuclear war with the Soviet Union, deepening racial tensions, and discontent with rigid roles for women and the demands of corporate conformity. A sense of rebellion had begun to brew behind the facade. It manifested itself in rock and roll, the budding civil rights movement, and the appearance of a youth culture, eventually exploding in the 1960s. Providing a comprehensive overview, this book includes entries on the prominent people, major events, issues, scandals, ideas, popular culture, and court cases of the decade that gave rise to the tensions of the 1960s.

The ABA Journal serves the legal profession. Qualified recipients are lawyers and judges, law students, law librarians and associate members of the American Bar Association.