It was December 1963 and the exclusive Clermont Club wsa full of the rich and titled, come to gamble the evening away. Upstairs American high-roller Ray Ryan sat down to play a game of chemmy with the club’s owner John Aspinall. Ryam considered Aspinall a friend – until he realised that the sleek Italian at the table was a card sharp hired to steal from him … So begins ‘The Hustlers’, an explosive true story told for the first time by two beguiling Irishmen who arrived in 1950’s London and were key witnesses to an extraordinary period in gambling history. John Burke teamed up with Aspinall to run the best chemmy games in town in those exciting days when most forms of gambling were illegal. He tells how, when they were finally arrested, they were able to win their case with the help of a bent policeman. As a result gambling was legalised in 1960, changing society for ever. Aspinall went on to set up the famous Clermont Club, where Burke was a fellow director. Bobby McKee moved in a world of deadly glamour, where no one was quite as they seemed. He describes cracking safes with legendary thief Eddie Chapman, smuggling in Morocco, and working with terrifying crime boss Billy Hill. He was friend to princes, movie stars and the criminally-inclined from all levels of society. And both men reveal how, when Billy Hill learned of Aspinall’s desperation for cash, he saw a chance to involve the Clermont in his best scheme yet, a scam called the ‘Big Edge’. Racy and entertaining, with a fantastic cast of characters from Lord Lucan and the Maharaja of Baroda to Mr Money and Louis the Rat, ‘The Hustles’ is a gripping account of the twentieth century’s most outrageous con.

The Hustlers: An Explosive True Story of Gambling, Greed and the Perfect Con PDF

The list of books you might like