THE FINAL WORD FROM THE LAST KING OF GANGLAND WITH A FOREWORD BY MARTINA COLE 'We couldn't, we wouldn't, let anyone take a liberty. That was never an option at that time.' Eddie Richardson is the last brand-name gangster. Say the name and the world of violent criminality grabs you by the throat. The Richardson brothers, Eddie and Charlie, and their infamous 'Torture Gang', made money while their rivals Ronnie and Reggie Kray made fatal mischief. They fought each other, but now, in 2018, Eddie Richardson says: 'They tell me blood is thicker than water, but with Charlie it wasn't so. He was evil.' With his brother dead, Eddie Richardson feels free to detail the story of a vicious family feud that provoked extravagant acrimony. No Handcuffs unravels the mysteries of decades of crime and political incident. The story of a turbulent era, it rivals the most imaginative fiction in its portrayal of gangland life with all its chanciness and rawness and careless disregard for any obstacle on the way to its target, the big money. In an inspired collaboration with bestselling author Douglas Thompson, the mature Eddie Richardson is given a voice to reflect on his journey from the scrapyards of South London to the glitz and glamour of the West End nightclubs, to the flesh and tease of Soho, down Downing Street and through the door of Number 10 to the perils of espionage and international intrigue, and his elevation to demigod status in hard-men territory - and finally as a high-security inmate at Her Majesty's pleasure, but with a personal fridge kept well stocked with gourmet food. No Handcuffs resonates today for, if anything, greed and corruption are more perverse, more rampant. As Eddie Richardson points out: 'We wrote the handbook for them.'

Eddie Richardson was for many years a dominant figure in Britain's criminal underworld. He was at the top of his game at a time when he who packed the biggest punch survived. In his revealing autobiography, he explains how he and his family rose to gangland prominence, how his dodgy deals brought him to the attention of the police, how he became a living legend and how he almost lost it all. For the first time, he talks frankly about his rivalry with the Krays, the family feuds that ironically brought him into greatest danger, being in prison and the celebrities, toffs and coppers who shared his life of crime and violence. With brutal honesty, he describes the motivations behind his lifestyle and explains why, for him, it was only ever a question of survival. He reveals that despite the hard-man, tough-guy image, his biggest weakness was putting the safety of others before his own. Eddie Richardson tells the gripping story of his life in the same gritty way in which he has lived it.