The peaky blinders, thanks to the hit TV series, are now synonymous with swagger, glamour and violence.
Charismatic but deeply flawed, the Shelby family prowl the dingy back streets leaving bloody chaos in their wake.
But who were the real peaky blinders?
Leading historian Carl Chinn, descendant of a peaky blinder and the son of an illegal Birmingham bookmaker, has drawn together unseen photographs and interviews with relatives of the gangs to reveal the fact behind the fiction.
In this gripping social history, we witness the struggles of the working class in one of the great cities of the British Empire before the First World War; documenting the rise and fall of the most infamous gangsters in British history.