The Real Peaky Blinders: Billy Kimber, the Birmingham Gang and the Racecourse Wars of the 1920s

Good read lots of photos

top book

Ar mayte,it’s bostin. Kipper tie and you can’t wash your hands in a buffalo. Went fishing down the cut and caught a whale....chucked it back there was no spokes in it

This is an excellent book and brings to life the true story of the gangs that ruled the race courses in the 20s,it is also interesting to discover that certain leading characters featured in the TV series as well as Billy Kimber did exhist in real life and were just as formidable as portrayed in the series...

This is a slim volume, a little over a hundred pages long, which feels like each chapter has been written as a separate article.The writing is really dull, spiced up with the occasional quotation from period newspapers or eye-witness accounts.There are plenty of photographs, though mostly from the 50s, showing approximately what an area would have looked like 30-40 years previous.Instead of getting a fully-fleshed picture of what Billy Kimber was like, and how he became the man he was, there's a disjointed series of paragraphs spread over several chapters, interspersed with often unrelated details. It's absolutely not how a modern history should be written. The phrase "academic" shouldn't be a pejorative, but I can't see the harm in a bit of scene-building to put the facts in context. It's possible that part of the problem was that Billy Kimber, and the gangs surrounding him, just weren't all that interesting. Their criminal exploits lacked any kind of wit, charm or romance, involving roughing up bookies, the police and each other. There was no art to their crime, no grand schemes, so perhaps the subject matter is as much to blame as the writer's style.When I finished the book I felt like the relevant facts could have been condensed into a single page of bullet points, which would have discarded pages of arrest reports and random, unrelated occurrences. Despite the short length, it was a real chore to finish.I find the large quantity of positive reviews baffling, although I suppose the old pictures of Birningham from the 50s would be enough to entertain readers from that city.

Chinn is something of an expert in his field and this book went down very well with the Other Half at Christmas. I did feel that the price (£11.99 if I recall correctly) was a little on the high side for this slim volume, but it is good quality and well-researched.

Bought this for my husband for Christmas as he loves the Peaky Blinders series on the TV. The book gives a good written and pictures of the true Peaky Blinders.

A really good read which enlightens one as to the realities on race track gang warfare.I had bit of a head start as I once worked with a Sabini relative .He had no idea of the family background until the chance finding of an old magazine article .This book would have provided all the information that he needed.Thoroughly recommended.

Livro com um conteúdo excepcional.

Intéressant et utileJ’adore la série Netflix

If you like Peaky Blinders this book is for you to truly understand the time in a proper manner. Get it

Lo avevo chiesto in italiano forse ho sbagliato ordine ma èbbello e me lo tengo così

Ich habe mir das Buch gekauft, da ich die Serie Peaky Blinder schon unglaublich toll fand, ich jedoch die Geschichte hinter der Serie wissen wollte. Ich wurde definitiv nicht enttäuscht und kann das Buch jedem Peaky-Blinders Liebhaber empfehlen, da es neue Aspekte aufdeckt!