The General

In a twenty year career marked by obsessive secrecy, brutality, and meticulous planning, Martin Cahill, aka, The General, quickly rose through the ranks of the Irish underworld, until he himself became an international celebrity.

His criminal record included assassination, kidnapping, the bombing of a car belonging to a forensics expert who could finger him, and pulling off one of the world's largest gold heists and even more incredible, the world's largest art heist.

He was untouchable, and loyal to his gang. Loved by the common man, his personal battle with the police, from dropping his pants when the police told him they'd expose him to digging up the police officers private golf course, would make him a living legend. But Martin not only refused to respect the police, he refused to pay tribute to the IRA. And unlike the police who had to follow the law in their battle to bring down Ireland's most wanted, the IRA played by their own rules.

In a twenty year career marked by obsessive secrecy, brutality, and meticulous planning, Martin Cahill, aka, The General, quickly rose through the ranks of the Irish underworld, until he himself became an international celebrity.

His criminal record included assassination, kidnapping, the bombing of a car belonging to a forensics expert who could finger him, and pulling off one of the world's largest gold heists and even more incredible, the world's largest art heist.

He was untouchable, and loyal to his gang. Loved by the common man, his personal battle with the police, from dropping his pants when the police told him they'd expose him to digging up the police officers private golf course, would make him a living legend. But Martin not only refused to respect the police, he refused to pay tribute to the IRA. And unlike the police who had to follow the law in their battle to bring down Ireland's most wanted, the IRA played by their own rules.

Publishers Weekly

Irish charm and gangland violence come together in this engrossing biography of Dublin godfather Martin Cahill. Irish journalist Williams recounts Cahill's rise from poverty to infamy as Ireland's most notorious crime boss, dubbed "the General" for his audacious and meticulously planned robberies. Cahill was a brutal thug (he literally crucified one underling he suspected of having crossed him) but also devoted lover (to his wife and her sister), a pillar of the slum communities where he grew up, and, as his fame for his spectacular jewelry and art heists grew, something of a folk hero. Combining thorough research and well-paced storytelling, Williams brings to life Cahill's exploits, his long war of wits with the often inept Irish police, and the clannish underworld where criminal gangs, IRA commandos, Protestant paramilitaries and police officials conducted their battles on weirdly intimate terms. Along the way he paints a picture of Dublin's social transformation in the 1970s and 80s, as an epidemic of heroin and guns, fueled by the conflict in Northern Ireland, brought big-city crime to its formerly safe and sleepy streets. Blending lurid picaresque and off-hand sociological insights, this is a stylish and thoughtful addition to the true-crime canon. Photos. (Mar.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Paul Williams is Ireland's most respected crime journalist and true crime author. A qualified criminologist he has won a number of major journalism awards for his investigative work for The Sunday World. He has been responsible for a string of major exposes about John Gilligan, his gang and the murder of Veronica Guerin. Williams is the international bestselling author of Gangland and The General which was made into a major motion picture by director John Boorman.