Legacy

After reading this extraordinary book, I realised how much has changed in the criminal underworld of London’s East End since I wrote my own book on the Kray twins nearly fifty years ago. Where there are criminals, there is always corruption, but Michael Gillard reveals criminal corruption on a scale that the Kray twins would never have dreamt of when I knew them. Recreational drugs had barely started, the Krays were simple East End gangsters and the police were relatively easy to cope with then. In contrast, the world that Gillard uncovers is a nightmare of corruption, with vast amounts of crooked money and constant threats against him. To write a book like Legacy requires courage as well as literary skill. Michael Gillard has both – John Pearson * The Profession of Violence, The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins *
A story of violence and corruption in gangland London that reads like The Sopranos….says a lot about Gillard’s immense strength of character and his fearless commitment to evidence-based journalism… it was Gillard’s robust journalism that managed to prove what the police failed to do in 30 years. – Jonathan Calvert * The Sunday Times *
Digging deep into the underbelly of London, Legacy illustrates the sordid links between business, politics and organised crime. It’s not only Latin America that suffers from gangster capitalism and corruption in the twenty-first century; to understand modern Britain you also have to understand how modern organized crime works – Ioan Grillo * author of El Narco and Gangster Warlords *
Gillard’s detailed investigation makes for a stunning and shocking read and adds credence to the old adage that truth can be stranger than fiction – Barrie Keeffe * The Long Good Friday *
a superbly well-researched book… Legacy could never be called a sports book in the accepted sense (it reads more like an outstanding crime thriller). – Peter Sharkey * Bristol Post *
this is a book that’s both eye-opening and hair-raising. – James Walton * The Daily Telegraph *

Gillard’s forensically meticulous book is a labyrinthine account of East End villains and the councillors, bankers, CEOs
and police who became ensnared in their web of corruption…

Michael Gillard is an award-winning journalist formerly of The Sunday Times and the Guardian. He now writes across international publications and turns crime into scripts. A two-times winner of Investigation of The Year in the British Journalism awards, in 2013 Gillard was voted Journalist of the Year for his investigation of organised crime and the London 2012 Olympics.

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