Loose Cannon
Published on 16. July 2009
Book
Paperback/Softback
202 pages
978-1-85398-501-0 (ISBN)
Description
During a lifetime of crime the author has been convicted of burglary, inflicting grievous bodily harm, larceny, receiving, unlawful possession, malicious damage and armed robbery. He carried firearms and had no compunction about using them and has served sentences totalling twenty years in a variety of penal institutions. This book is the story of his criminal career, spanning more than three decades, and tells how he finally wrenched himself free from a life of crime.
Reviews / Votes
"'Joe was not a gang leader; he was a boxer who used his physical size, pugilistic skills and ease with violence to make his living. When engaged in bank robbery he was so physically threatening he hardly needed a gun. His penchant for violence and crime was such he was one of the youngest inmates in Dartmoor prison. I am not romantic about criminals. They are not usually working class Robin Hoods as some reporters would have you believe. Many I have encountered are clearly evil, psychopaths and inveterate liars. I have no doubt that in his heyday that Joe Cannon was capable of great violence and I do not see him as a hero. But he was there. He can speak as a participant and eyewitness to a historic period of London crime.' From the introduction to Loose Cannon, by Paul Lashmar."More details
Person
From the mean streets of Notting Dale in the 1940s & 1950s, through the Kray's London of the 1960s to the 'supergrass' 1970s, Joe Cannon was a player throughout, as well as being a sharp-eyed observer. Loose Cannon is marvellously written and disarmingly honest.