Books like The big heist by Anthony M. DeStefano

Set in 1855 England, this historical crime tale follows Edward Pierce, a daring rogue who plots the Great Train Robbery, targeting a monthly gold shipment to the Channel—an audacious heist that promises to shock the Victorian era.

When international crook Nicolas Fox escapes capture, he offers the FBI a deal—work with Special Agent Kate O’Hare to find a corrupt investment banker on a private Indonesian island, forcing both to confront greed and loyalty.

"The startling and sensational true story of the most famous unsolved heist in American history: the theft of $28 million in jewels from the Pierre Hotel. New York City, 1972: Bobby Comfort and Sammy "the Arab" Nalo were highly skilled jewel thieves who specialized in robbing luxury Manhattan hotels. (They once raided Sophia Loren's suite, escaping with over $1 million in gems.) With the blessing of the Lucchese crime family, they cooked up their target: the posh Pierre Hotel, host to kings and queens, presidents, and the wealthiest of the wealthy. Dressed in tuxedoes and driven in a limousine, the band of thieves arrived at the Pierre and--with near-balletic choreography--seized the security guards and then swiftly took as hostages the night staff and several unfortunate guests who happened to be roaming around the lobby. The deposit boxes inside the vault chamber were plundered and, after holding the Pierre under siege for almost two hours, the gentlemanly thieves then departed in their limousine with a haul of $28 million. It looked like the perfect crime--until it wasn't. In no time at all, Comfort, Nalo, and their partners begin to double and triple cross one another; two absconded to Europe with the bulk of the booty, while three were murdered by their former associates. The authorities immediately suspected Comfort and Nalo of masterminding the Pierre affair and the men were arrested, but the veteran criminals weren't talking. Furthermore, in order to ensure that they were not prosecuted, the Lucchese Family funneled a $250,000 bribe to the presiding judge to quash the charges. To this day The Pierre Hotel caper remains unsolved. A suspenseful narrative of Mafia intrigue, police corruption, and personal betrayal--including a poignant love story that mearly ends in a suicide-homicide--[this] is the incredible true tale of one of the greatest heists in American history."--Jacket.

Unveiling the Shadows of Organized Crime: The Life of Clyde Smaldone

Gaspipe tells the full story of Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, the former Lucchese family boss whose life of crime—drug trafficking, racketeering, and alliances with Russian mobsters—ended in federal prison after he became an informant.

Mike Dash unravels the rise of Italian organized crime in America, focusing on the pioneering Mafia figure Giuseppe Morello, "The Clutch Hand," and his network in early 20th‑century New York.

From the inside: Henry Hill’s first‑hand account of the 1978 Lufthansa heist, the largest unrecovered cash robbery in history, and the unresolved murders that followed.

"For six terrifying months in 1911-1912, the citizens of Paris were gripped by a violent crime streak. A group of bandits went on a rampage throughout the city and its suburbs, robbing banks and wealthy Parisians, killing anyone who got in their way, and always managing to stay one step ahead of the police. But Jules Bonnot and the Bonnot Gang weren't just ordinary criminals; they were anarchists, motivated by the rampant inequality and poverty in Paris. John Merriman tells this story through the eyes of two young, idealistic lovers: Victor Kibaltchiche (later the famed Russian revolutionary and writer Victor Serge) and Rirette Maîtrejean, who chronicled the Bonnot crime spree in the radical newspaper L'Anarchie. While wealthy Parisians frequented restaurants on the Champs-Élysées, attended performances at the magnificent new opera house, and enjoyed the decadence of the so-called Belle Époque, Victor, Rirette, and their friends occupied a vast sprawl of dank apartments, bleak canals, and smoky factories. Victor and Rirette rejected the violence of Bonnot and his cronies, but to the police it made no difference. Victor was imprisoned for years for his anarchist beliefs, Bonnot was hunted down and shot dead, and his fellow bandits were sentenced to death by guillotine or lifelong imprisonment. Fast-paced and gripping, Ballad of the Anarchist Bandits is a tale of idealists and lost causes--and a vivid evocation of Paris in the dizzying years before the horrors of World War I were unleashed."--Jacket flaps.

The FBI investigation into a $1 billion drug pipeline, bringing heroin into the U.S. via pizza parlors.

Lance draws on three decades of once secret FBI files to tell the definitive story of Greg Scarpa Sr., a.k.a. the "Grim Reaper," a Mafia capo who "stopped counting" after 50 murders, while secretly betraying a crime family as an informant for the FBI.--From publisher's description.

A biography that follows a woman married to a hereditary prince of the Mafia, exploring her life within an Italian American secret society.