Glasgow's Godfather: The Astonishing Inside Story Of Walter Norval,
The City's First Crime Boss

Product Description

Walter Norval was a man marked by destiny to be a career criminal in one of Britain's hardest cities. As a boy he grew up in a world of illegal betting, violent canal bank pitch-&-toss schools, sleazy dance halls, brothels & bars where the denizens of the slums in the north side of Glasgow slaked gargantuan thirsts & plotted murder & mayhem. Before he had reached his teens, close relatives had died as blood was spilled in the streets. As a youngster he ran 'messages' for the toughest gangsters in the city & stood guard over the pots of cash in illegal gambling schools. It was a remarkable apprenticeship, dangerous & sometimes deadly. It honed a latent toughness & a talent for lawbreaking that saw him emerge in the Seventies as the first of a succession of Glasgow godfathers. Dressed in pinstriped style, he controlled his foot soldiers with fearsome fists & planned robberies with the attention to detail of a military general. He organised various Glasgow fighting factions into a single gang, which pulled off a spectacular series of robberies. But, unlike his successors, he abhorred drugs & drug-dealing. &, in a remarkable twist, he joined the anti-drugs war in later life. His story
- told by the best-selling crime historian Robert Jeffrey
- provides a fascinating insight into the making of a criminal mastermind, from boy to man.