Great Train Robbery (1963) Head of the Buckinghamshire Crime Investigation Department (CID) was born on 29 September 1909 and died on 28 November 2005, aged 96 years. He retired on the last day of the trial after the verdicts were handed down (at the then compulsory retirement age of 55). This allowed him (with Ronald Payne of "The Sunday Telegraph", who was involved in the paper's coverage of the case) to be the first of the investigators to write a book "The Train Robbers" on the robbery investigation in 1964. In the book he expressed some frustration with the Flying Squad although he mostly
The Great Train Robbery (novel) did not want to be constrained by what actually happened. The true story of the robbery can be found David C. Hanrahan's book "The First Great Train Robbery". The "New York Times" called it "Mr Crichton's best thriller to date". The "Los Angeles Times" described it as "marvellous fun". The book was one of the biggest best selling novels in the US in 1975. Three audiobook versions have been released: The novel was later made into a 1979 film entitled "The First Great Train Robbery" directed by Crichton starring Sean Connery as Pierce, Donald Sutherland as Agar and Lesley-Anne Down