Reg McKay

Paul Ferris was one of Britain's most feared gangsters for twenty-five years. Now, in Villains, Ferris reveals the real inside story of the villains he met and worked with, the common thugs and big-time players that surrounded him and the world of violence and fear he lived in every day of his life. In Glasgow, London and Manchester, Paul Ferris knew and worked with the biggest gangsters in the UK - everyone from Arthur Thompson in Glasgow to the Addams family in London and Rab Carruthers in Manchester. Villains is the story of the hard lives of hard men by someone who knows. There's jewel heists, crime families, new stories about Glasgow's Godfather, Arthur Thompson, a secret meeting with loyalist 'Mad Dog' Johnny Adair, the Glasgow hard man who loved bingo, and much more. And, when it comes to villains, it takes one to know one.

How did he become Glasgow's most feared gangster, deemed a risk to national security?Arthur Thompson, Godfather of the crime world and senior partner of the Krays, recruited young Ferris as a bagman, debt collector and equaliser.

KILLERS, CROOKS AND CONS chronicles the astonishing crimes that horrified 20th-century Scotland. Taking each decade in turn, Reg McKay tells the true tales of the crimes that shook the nation, often the world. And these crimes will shock you still. From serial killers to armed mobsters and poisoners to cops who killed, KILLERS, CROOKS AND CONS takes you from Glasgow to Edinburgh, Aberdeen to Dundee and from the Highlands to the Borders. As well as well-known cases like the world's first serial killer Peter Manuel who was hanged for the murder of seven people, wealthy landowner Max Garvie whose kinky parties led to his murder and the strange case of the death of SNP activist Willie McRae, Reg McKay tells the story of many of Scotland's less well-known but equally fascinating cases - including a police showdown with armed members of the IRA, the murder of a wealthy socialite and a committed Christian who went to extraordinary lengths to cover up his part in the brutal murder of his wife. KILLERS, CROOKS AND CONS is Scotland's very own criminal record from a century of shame.