{"title":"Books by John Lucas","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780552566124","title":"TURF","description":"\u003cp\u003eJay is fifteen years old and a member of the Blake Street Boyz gang. With a knife in his pocket and his best friend Milk by his side, he spends his time fiercely defending their turf.  He takes his lessons from the streets and thinks he knows everything about choices. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChoose the right gang, and they will protect you. Choose the right clothes, the right chat, the right snacks and you will be respected. But now he's coming of age and he's being given the chance to step up. 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This was the moment when modern drug trafficking was born. The men and women who seized the opportunity became the world’s first drug lords, branded by the press as “Cocaine Kings”, “Opium Kings” and “Dope Kings”, operating vast international networks in an age before surveillance, wiretaps or instant communication.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawing on previously classified police files, intelligence reports and court records — and illustrated with never-before-seen photographs of traffickers and their associates — this book reconstructs a hidden history of corruption, ambition and moral panic. It follows notorious figures such as the enigmatic Brilliant Chang and the so-called White Queen of Limehouse, alongside international fixers, anarchists, aristocrats and journalists whose crimes reached deep into the British establishment. Some cases were quietly buried. Others triggered the earliest involvement of MI5 and MI6 in narcotics investigations. 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