A cunning and formidable lawbreaker, Bill Miner spent half his life behind bars and the other half planning ways to execute his crimes. Billy used his robberies to fuel his love of fancy clothes, expensive restaurants, and wild nights in brothels. Or to fund his version of the high life he enjoyed, when he could play the role of a wealthy mining mogul lavishly entertaining, enticing, and seducing young men. Famous for being a courteous thief and feathering his assaults with polite apologies, he was identified by his Pinkerton Detective Agency pursuers as the “master criminal of the American West” and the "Gentleman Robber".
Although Billy could be easily identified by his jailhouse tattoos, he managed to hide himself completely even in high society. He was deliberate and careful but eventually let his libido and the romantic distraction for a young cowboy lover tear away his freedom on a rainy, isolated stretch of railway track in Canada. Bill wasn’t easily confined, however. He had too many years of experience with prisons. After mysteriously escaping from his Canadian prison cell, his nefarious life finally simmered to a quiet conclusion in Georgia. Billy Miner, the dashing thief who carried out Canada’s first train robbery in 1904, died in the tiny American prison town of Milledgeville, Georgia. The townspeople gave him a parade to the cemetery in the new suit they bought just for him, and they buried him there with honor. Or did they? Find out in this fast-paced romp through a master thief’s life.
Gentleman Robber is book one in the Forgotten Heroes series of historical biographies. It is an intriguing glimpse at the life of a fascinating individual.
