They said it couldn t be done, but it was. The Crown Jewels of Britain were guarded by the best defenses in the world, they were impregnable. Until Captain Rod Jackson, Royal Marine Commandos, saw the way to do it. The vault builders had thought of every possible defense, except one. And it was the British government which unwittingly provided the way in.

In exciting action scenes in Britain and abroad see how the Crown Jewels were stolen, and how the raiding team got away with it. See too the controversial results, and how the course of history was altered. The unexpected twist in the ending will keep you enjoying this book right up to the last page. Completely authentic in its settings and details, the author writes from inside knowledge of the places and people mentioned. The book rings excitingly true because it all happened, in How to Steal the Crown Jewels.

Educated at University College, Oxford University, a contemporary of Bill Clinton and sharing the the same common room, the author remains undecided on the value of mentioning this. But service in the Royal Air Force and the British Army, and contacts in the Royal Navy, makes the author expertly qualified to write in convincing detail on the exciting action scenes in this fast paced thriller.

Inside knowledge too comes from contact with the British Royal family. The author lunched with the Queen and Prince Phillip in May 1999, and mentioned to the Prince that a way had been devised to steal the Crown Jewels. He seemed quite amused. Not only is it possible, this book shows how it can be done.

The results are certainly controversial, and are sure to stir a wide public reaction, but that s what makes the book such a good read.

With the other tourists he rode slowly along the moving walkway which carried people past the jewel cases to stop them dawdling there. The egg-sized diamonds, almost too big to be true, slid slowly by. He stepped off at the end and moved to the raised viewing platform. He gazed round the room at the security cameras and thick steel doors.

Then the hairs on the back of his neck came up, and an electric thrill ran through his body. He tried to suppress the smile spreading over his face. He d seen how to do it! It was so simple! There was a way.

He composed his features, feeling self-conscious standing there grinning. He hoped no one had noticed. The four biggest diamonds in the world were only a few feet away behind some glass, and he knew he could take them.

It was the tourists who had made this possible. The Crown Jewels used to be kept in an underground vault, but 15,000 people a day were trying to see them and this caused queues an hour long. So in 1994 the Queen opened a new Jewel House on the ground floor of the Waterloo Barracks.

It was the jewels now being at ground floor level which gave Rod the idea of how to take them. It was known that if an attack was made on the Jewel House the display cases containing the main pieces would lower automatically into the vaults below. Rod could see a way to overcome this.

The sudden vision that he could steal the Crown Jewels wasn t just a greed thing with Rod. His reasons were more complex than that. Sure, he could enjoy the wealth that would come from the jewels, but he wanted also to deal a blow to the monarchy which he had once served so loyally but had then thrown him on the scrap heap. To do this he needed the main regalia, the crowns and scepters, and above all the magnificent Stuart Sapphire. He d been brought up as a Catholic but never taken it very seriously. Now approaching middle age some of the early teaching began to surface. The Germanic Windsor line of British royalty had crumbled to decadence in its standards, and almost unnoticed by himself, Rod had come round to a Jacobite point of view. If there was going to be a monarchy, then it ought to be the rightful one, the Stuarts.