Peaky Blinders

The true story of Britain’s most famous criminal gang

Billy Kimber was a shrewd criminal with a magnetic personality who rose to lead Britain’s most notorious gang: the Peaky Blinders, who controlled the illegal protection rackets of local businesses and the betting operations at horse races.

Today, thanks to the hit television series, the Peaky Blinders are synonymous with arrogance, glamour, and unrestrained violence. But who were the real Peaky Blinders?

After decades of research, historian Carl Chinn—grandson of a Peaky Blinder and son of an illegal bookmaker from Birmingham—draws on previously unpublished material and interviews with the descendants of the gang’s members to offer a fascinating account of the rise and fall of the infamous mob that spread chaos across England at a time when the British Empire’s working class was up in arms.

These are the Peaky Blinders, and this is their true story.