Books by Noel 'Razor' Smith

The true and terrible story of Teds versus Punks and other gang wars 1976-1982, as told by the leader of the infamous Balham Wildkatz, Noel 'Razor' Smith. -- .

From ex-professional bank robber, this is a dictionary of criminal slang out there - and an absorbing journey, through words, into the heart of the criminal world.

As a gun-wielding bank robber, Noel 'Razor' Smith was top of the criminal tree, enjoying the excitement and benefits of a dangerous and adrenalin-filled career. But he'd also spent the greater part of his adult life in prison, an environment where respect and basic survival were guaranteed only to those prepared to use the most brutal violence. In his new book, Smith takes the story on from his highly acclaimed memoir A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun, and describes how he came to realize that the game wasn't worth the candle. In his mid-forties he applied to enter Grendon, then the only prison in Britain offering intense therapeutic treatment to hardened criminals. He went from a brutal high-security prison, HMP Whitemoor, to an institution where he was encouraged to investigate just why his life had been given over to violence and crime. Smith paints an unforgettable portrait of the hardened and severely damaged inmates of Grendon, many of them guilty of famous crimes, and their attempts to turn round their lives. And in particular his own arduous five-year journey to re-enter society as a straight citizen.

A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun is the autobiography of convicted felon Noel 'Razor' Smith. An extraordinarily vivid account of how a tearaway kid from South London became a career criminal, it is both a searing indictment of a system that determinedly brutalized young offenders and a frank, unsentimental acknowledgement of the thrills of the criminal life. Shocking, fascinating and frightening by turns, it also reveals Razor Smith to be a remarkably talented writer.