The architect who became the king of bank robberies | Hacker News Reader

The architect who became the king of bank robberies

thehustle.co

124 pointspaulpauper11 comments

Noted in the footer of the story, but if you liked that content you’re likely also going to enjoy the book, A Burglar's Guide to the City:

https://www.amazon.com/Burglars-Guide-City-Geoff-Manaugh/dp/...

No, you likely won't. I read that book and personally found it extremely dull. It's just a series of anecdotes about some historical heists and some more about some time the author spent with the FBI's break-in team. The author is an architecture blogger, and I think he thought there was some profound insight into the nature of buildings we could glean from unconventional uses of them, but he never actually arrives at any kind of point. He just says "Hey! Look at these burglars cutting through walls and using fire escapes and roof entrances in ways they weren't intended! Isn't that cool? Wow, I bet we could learn something from this!"

The point of the book was to learn something from it. He didn't.

I am on the market for books about heists and burglars in the 19th century. So far I have Ben McIntyre's The Napoleon of Crime, about Adam Worth. If anyone else has recommendations, I would appreciate it.

I read the book, familiar with the topic, met professionals similar to those mentioned in the book in real life, and would recommend it; both for knowledge of the topic and entertainment.

What exactly are you hoping to find in a book? For what it’s worth, read the excerpt on Amazon for the book you recommended and to me, seems like historical fiction with little to do on the actual topic itself; clearly it’s an excerpt though.

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Edit: Here’s excerpt for “A Burglar’s Guide to the City”that appears to be legal for anyone interested:

https://www.scribd.com/document/311259914/A-Burglar-s-guide-...

I wouldn’t say the book isn’t enjoyable, but I agree the book alluded to a lot more specifics than it delivered. It’s a fun but very surface level read in my opinion. The author certainly piqued my interest on the topic and I refer to it in casual conversation pretty frequently, but I also expected a bit more…technical depth out of it. Thanks for the book recommendation on the topic, I’ve been wondering how to follow the thread Burglar’s Guide started.

As a specific example of how the book opened my eyes to understanding architecture in a way I sure others have noticed, but never seen mentioned anywhere and is indirectly referenced in the excerpt I mentioned, commercial buildings frequently have “blueprints” right inside the front door called “fire alarm zone maps”; Google link below for examples:

https://www.google.com/search?q=fire+alarm+zone+maps&tbm=isc...

Other maps of comparable amounts of information include “fire evacuation maps” which are frequently on display in various areas depending on the type of building; Google link below for examples:

https://www.google.com/search?q=fire+evacuation+maps&tbm=isc...

While neither are complete blueprints, the maps frequently have information that’s not available; if you know what you’re doing, you can frequently even get blueprints.

To me, point of the book is introduce a way of thinking about architecture, not stay an update “how to guide” for physical security counter measures, red teams, etc.

Super interesting!!! As a former penetration tester, I had several opportunities to move to the other side of the law. The money offered to me was extremely high, and I believe I could be really good at these ops. With that said, I decided to live “boring” life. This story is interesting just because it makes me wonder how my life would’ve looked like if I chose the other side.

Interesting story, I enjoyed it. If you ever perused the MIT Guide to Lockpicking you'll probably find this story interesting. I would like to see another level of detail that talks about what challenges he faced in the various crimes.

Has Leslie's life been made into a movie? I would certainly watch it.

I don't know, but Heist podcast covered it. They're always entertaining.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/heist-podcast-episode-...

Due to tme constraints, needing to be cost-effective etc, wouldnt a movie be sadly disappointing- especially as there are so very few movies that have succeeded depictng real-life characters, books etc.

I feel I'd rather read a good synopsis rather than suffer 87 minutes of rewritten boff.

I'd also rather prefer a decent biography.

A series would probably be even better - something like Breaking Bad in the 19th century

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