The Criminal Alphabet

Read this and you'll discover why a rifle isn't for shooting (but nostrils are), turtle doves never fly, jam rolls shouldn't be eaten and The Greybar Hotel is definitely not worth checking into. You'll feel like Charlie Big Spuds when you've finished.

The ultimate guide to the criminal world through its slang - from insults to terms of respect, weapons to injuries, crimes to punishment

'I have spent almost 33 of the last 53 years in and out of prison, but mainly in. I was a juvenile offender back in the mid 1970s and went on to become an adult prisoner in the 1980s and beyond. My shortest prison sentence was 7 days (for criminal damage) and my longest sentence was life (for bank robbery and possession of firearms). I have 58 criminal convictions for everything from attempted theft to armed robbery and prison escape, and I was a career criminal for most of my life. What I do not know about criminal and prison slang could be written on the back of a postage stamp and still leave room for The Lord's Prayer . . . '

From ex-professional bank robber and best-selling author Noel Smith, this is the most authoritative dictionary of criminal slang out there - and an absorbing journey, through words, into the heart of the criminal world.