Ingrained in American
culture are stories of crimes, criminals, and brazen robberies known
as heist. Films such as "Reservoir Dogs", "Heat",
and "Ocean's 11" depict perpetrators as seasoned professionals,
veterans hardened to a life of crime. But the stories and characters
are not real - they are fiction. What happens when the crimes and the
risks involved are real? The result is "Mr. Pink: The Inside Story
of the Transylvania Book Heist".
In this amazing true story, four college students of privilege and promise
become unlikely criminals. Told from first hand experience, the story
follows the author, Chas Allen, as he and a mismatch of friends revel
in an outward appearance of parties and excess on a university campus.
But behind the facade of keggers and class, the students venture off
the beaten path to find themselves playing a dangerous high-stakes game
with an underground casino, dealing with European black market buyers,
and living a real-life version of the movies they had always admired.
As the risks increase so too does their desperation to turn to crime.
"[They]
were college buddies who hatched a plan to steal rare books from the
library at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky."
-Harper's Magazine
"...
aiming for editions of Audobon's 'Bird's of America' valued at $12 Million."
-The Wall Street Journal
Serving a sentence of 87 months in federal prison Chas Allen has sent
out thousands of handwritten pages to his brother Blake and sister Sydney
who helped publish his true american heist story. Chas Allen's non-fiction
true story account of his involvement with the Transylvania Book Heist
is the tell-all true story that answers the questions everyone has been
asking. What could lead four college students to a life of crime and
how they were able to pull off a multi-million dollar book heist. Among
the books taken were, Darwin's "On the Origin of Species"
and editions of James Audubon's "Bird's of America" valued
at $12 million.
"...
one of Lexington's most notorious crimes." -Lexington Herald Leader
"...
a crime that would one day be listed among the F.B.I.'s all-time most
significant art-theft cases." -Vanity Fair Magazine
