Killing Charlie charts the extraordinary rise and spectacular fall of Charlie Wilson, the most powerful villain to emerge from the ultimate British crime of the twentieth century: "The Great Train Robbery." Wilson moved on from armed robbery to become an all-powerful figure in the drug underworld. But his life of greed and corruption came to a violent end when his rivals decided to wipe him off the face of the earth—with the tacit approval of Spanish, British, and US drug enforcement agencies. Meticulously researched, Killing Charlie pulls the reader into Wilson's bizarre, sordid, crime-filled world—one that took him from the mean streets of south London to even harsher prison corridors, and from a quiet life in small-town Canada to the heated, manic, cocaine-fuelled Costa del Sol. Containing interviews with many of Wilson's former associates, the book also reveals how Wilson was feared by many other criminals; how his love of pretty women almost cost him his life; and how he desperately tried to "retire," only to discover that gangsters never rest in peace.