Wayne Worcester

Good book overall. Maybe a little weak on some specifics about what happened to the loot afterwards, but this might be an impossible task as almost none of the victims of the theft were willing to come forward.

The cast of characters run the gamut from mobsters to petty criminals, politicians, police, and the innocent bystanders caught up in the web of planning and pulling off the heist. The book goes in to the personalities of the men and women who were directly and indirectly involved. Unfortunately, the authors fail to dig deeply enough in some of the more intriguing aspects of this story. Again, unwilling witnesses, a still lingering threat of Mob retaliation, and the passage of decades may have all contributed to making that difficult.

The authors do a good job of bringing to life the people who were involved. Most of them are not pleasant and there isn't anyone who stands out as a pivotal figure in solving this or bringing the thieves to justice. Things happen, because the criminals rat each other out or make mistakes. It isn't really a story about great sleuthing or investigation. Pretty much everyone in law enforcement knew who was responsible, with some inside intel from the Mob.

I would have liked more insight into how the investigation happened, how the Mob was impacted as a result, and what the aftermath of all that was. Despite some minor reservations, I did like the book and would say it's a must read if you're at all interested in the Mob, New England crime, or just true crime in general. It's quick and easy, well written, and at times bitingly humorous.… (mer)

Wayne Worcester has completely missed the Sherlockian boat I'm afraid. Yes the book features two characters familiarly named Holmes and Watson, but neither of these fellows behave anything like Conan Doyle's timeless creations. We are treated to rather bizarre political and sexual views that paint our heroes in poor light. This tasteless excuse for Sherlockiana is quite likely the worst thing I've read since the abysmally bad Samba for Sherlock. Do yourself a favour if you are a Holmes fan...give this one a miss!… (mer)

Ugh. A potentially interesting story buried under miles of purple prose and useless details. The writing was just awful, I couldn't decide if it was meant to be noirish or sound like mobsters or something totally different but it was hard to read. There was a huge cast of characters and I had trouble keeping track of them because they were mostly described by height, weight and hair color. There was a huge and meandering build up and then more details of the trial and subsequent actions of the gang than I could ever be interested in until it petered off into an unsatisfying end.… (mer)

THE LAST GOOD HEIST by Tim White, Randall Richard, and Wayne Worcester drops the reader into the 1970's, where one of the largest heists in the US happened in Providence, RI. The heist was from an virtually unknown vault containing 148 safe deposit boxes, many with illegally obtained belongings of criminals and other questionable individuals. The book follows people and events leading up to the heist and the covers in depth the aftermath of thieves, the related mobsters, the law enforcement investigation, even the respective prosecution and defense teams.
Robert "Deuce" Dussault is the through line in the book. The story strays away to follow and another thief or investigation involved with the heist, but always it returns to Deuce. He is depicted as a career criminal who definitely lives life on the wrong side of the law and enjoys that lifestyle, and yet while we are supposed to find that despicable, I found myself wanted to see Deuce succeed; not necessarily to get away with all of the crimes he committed, but to succeed in being a contended, happy person. I think there must have been something charismatic about Deuce that people couldn't help but like. I found how the book described all of the legal proceedings, particularly how virtually every accused burglar either was acquitted due to a alibi that probably wasn't real, or those who were found guilty managed to appeal away part or most of there jail time amazing. Several of them even got extensive Witness Protection help by ratting out each other or the mafia thugs that put them up to the heist. The authors laid out all of those proceeding very straight forward and yet I felt like by identifying those actions by our legal system, that the authors were questioning whether that should be how things work or not. And even if that's not the case, it did make me question the whole process.
For non-fiction readers, particularly criminal history, THE LAST GOOD HEIST is a pleasure to reader. It is constructed well, entertaining and exciting to read, and made me want to read more about all parties involved in THE LAST GOOD HEIST.
Thank you to Rowman & Littlefield, Tim White, Randall Richard, and Wayne Worcester, and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!… (mer)