The great train robbery (novel)
The Great Train Heist is a 1975 novel by the American author Michael Crichton . The book is about The Great Train Heist of 1855 , in which a group of criminals took around 200 lbs. Stolen gold (equivalent to 91 kilograms) from a moving train that was on its way to Folkestone .
The book is set against the backdrop of the Crimean War during the Victorian Era , and most of the action takes place in London. Edward Pierce, described as a “gentleman”, plans to rob a gold transport by rail with a group of accomplices while it is in motion. In months of preparation by means of observation, bribery and deception, the group procures imprints of safe keys, lead balls as weight dummies and finally access to the transport carts in which the gold is transported. The robbery succeeds, but the perpetrators are caught.
The novel largely corresponds to historical facts, while the names of the protagonists have been changed. In the book, the former railroad employee William Pierce becomes the gentleman Edward Pierce , the professional criminal Edward Agar becomes Robert Agar .
error
Pierce mentioned the climber Coolidge , actually was WAB Coolidge at this time only 5 years old, so not part of the golden age of mountaineering , but the Silver Age.
Bank President Trent has a Dr. Scott's electric hairbrush . At that time, however, electric motors were not yet widespread and there was no power grid.
filming
The novel was filmed in 1979 under the title The Great Train Robbery, directed by Crichton with Sean Connery as Edward Pierce, Donald Sutherland as Robert Agar and Lesley-Anne Down as Miriam ; the music is by Jerry Goldsmith .
The film was nominated for the Best Cinematography Award of the British Society of Cinematographers and the Best Motion Picture by the Edgar Allan Poe Award by the Mystery Writers Association of America nominated.
expenditure
- The Great Train Robbery. Knopf, New York 1975, ISBN 0-394-49401-6 .
- The great train robbery. German by Hans-Joachim Maass, Rowohlt, Reinbek b. Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-498-00844-7 .