Salford Lads: The Rise and Fall of Paul Massey

This is the best account I've read upon this matter very well informed very impartial i highly recommend this read and have done so. This author is also the best I've read too submit a "gangland"book his style dances between testimonies and varieties of authority and consent. As opposed to others with their distant and media fed judgemental unsanctioned doctrine .... My hat raises up to this author i would like the author to write one upon Cregan's story to see whether he can indeed undercover the truth that lead and provoked Cregan's trail of tragic killing spree

I have enjoyed all Bernard O Mahoneys books and this one was no different. He takes you right into the extremely violent life’s of all involved in the Salford and Manchester criminal underworld. Sure I have read some bits before especially the tales about the Hacienda, which have been well documented across countless publications. You won’t learn anything new about the Noonan family or the war between the Gooch and Doddington gangs either. Even a lot about Massey has been documented in other books but O Mahoneys style of writing keeps you hooked throughout. The book is well researched and no stone is left unturned in giving the reader all the details about the rise and fall of Paul Massey and all his equally despressingly violent cohorts. If you enjoy true crime this book is worth the money

Exceptional book in every way - I read a lot of true crime and this is head shoulders above most. O’Mahoney is a great writer and obviously a hell of a lot of research and hard work went into this. Iit’s about as fair to all sides as Is possible. The editing is top notch and I’m terrible fir spotting factual mistakes as to place names and other factual things etc and this is a very rare example where I could see few iif any.. Which is far more than you can say for many books by the big Americaan true crime writers where truly terrible errors in their use oif vocabulary litter their books and which apparently contain many factual errors in names etc as well. The exceptionally high standard of BO’M ‘s accuracy and written English us even more impressive when you see how contemporary this book is with it apparently still being completed in 2020 and hitting the shelves soon after.When you realise before he took up writing he was merely a bouncer and didn’t in the slightest follow the career path of most writers the high standard of his work is truly amazing.I work all over Manchester/Salford and saw a lot of these incidents in the Manchester Evening News which makes things particularly interesting as I see roads that I work in each week. The book is great but O’Mahoney doesn’t shy away from revealing the criminal lifestyle for the tawdry and horrifying waste of time it is and puts to bed the idea that there is any honour in the world of organised crime once and for all. The only black mark is the cringeworthy use of various Manchester pop songs as subtitles for each chapter - that needs dropping before any reprint. But aside from that a definite 5 out of 5 stars for this book.

I read a lot of true crime books but this one by Bernard O'Mahoney about the rise and fall of Salford's "Mr Big", Paul Massey is exceptional in many ways. It's exceptionally detailed and it's exceptionally violent with page after page of shooting,stabbings,torture,slashings and even bombings. If it was a work of fiction you'd think the author should tone down the violence to make it believable, this is all true with events in Salford of the time being more like Chicago in the 1930's than what you'd expect in a small English city.Bernard O'Mahoney doesn't glamorise the events or the people and tells of the time "Mr Big" only put £5 worth of petrol in his car because it was all he had , emphasises the wasted lives many of the "Top Boys" lead as they spend decades in prison and the sheer mindless stupidity of the violence,often stemming from a wrong word or perceived slight.Bernard O'Mahoney's "Essex Boys" is a true crime classic,this one is just as good.

It's hard for me to review because the first hundred pages is took from the book Gang War by Peter Walsh (easily the best book on Manchester gangs, with interviews and chapters on PM and the salford lads) the second half i did find interesting and a good read, but Bernard seems biased towards one side, I guess because they was simply willing to talk to him.On one hand he talks about how people would describe PM as a social worker for trying to help everyone, but then describes him as a selfish bully throughout. If one of the people involved wrote a book about what went, on and still is in Salford, that's a book I would definitely buy.

Links a lot a stories I’ve heard of through the years about gangland Salford.Great detail and knowledge from Bernard as you would expect

I’ve read all of Bernards books so when I saw that his latest was based on Paul Massey and the Manchester gang scene I just had to purchase it.I enjoyed the book and read the whole thing in a few days, it’s a lot more detailed than some of the reviews on here suggest.The last chapter from Mark Fellows is an interesting one, although chilling in places, it reveals another side of the story that’s not been told anywhere else until now. My only negative and it’s a minor criticism, would be the lack of photos, like you get in O’Mahoney’s ‘Essex Boys’ as you can see who the main players in the story are, and what they looked like. But overall this is a good book and I would recommend it to any true crime readers.

This book is not for the faint hearted. Anyone thinking of being a gangster dont do it. It's not worth it . Fantastic insight into the brutal unforgiving world of Salford Manchester gangland . Well written very informative once I started reading I couldn't put it down . RIP to all the victims of which there is sadly many. My heart goes out to the families involved . Stay away from crime because it certainly does not pay. This book I rate 10/10. One of the best true crime books I've ever read