The Bonnot Gang

Book excerpt: This is the story of the infamous Bonnot Gang: the most notorious French anarchists ever, and the inventors of the motorized get-away. It is the story of how the anarchist taste for illegality developed into illegalism - the theory that theft is liberating. And how a number of young anarchists met in Paris in the years before the first world war, determined to live their lives to the full, regardless of the inevitable - and tragic - consequences. A gripping historical thriller, Parry narrates their lives and background - a Paris of riots, strikes and savage repression. A stronghold of foreign exiles and home-grown revolutionaries. Victor Serge and 'l'anarchie' the individualist weekly. Their robberies, daring and violent, would give them a lasting notoriety in France. Their deaths, as spectacular as their lives, would make them a legend amongst revolutionaries the world over. Not only that, but they were all vegetarians, who drank only water!