Roll the Dice [Hardcover]

Darius Guppy (Author), Nicholas Davies (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1857821599 | ISBN-13: 978-1857821598 | Publication Date: October 1996

When his father lost his home and almost everything he owned in the Lloyds Insurance meltdown, Darius Guppy swore revenge. He cold-bloodedly set out to restore the family fortune by swindling Lloyds out of #1.8 million, with a daring scheme. He tricked Lloyds out of the money by pretending he had been robbed at gunpoint of a stash of precious stones. Lloyds paid up and Guppy - at the age of 25 - was a millionaire. Nearly two years later the law caught up with him. He was disgraced and sentenced to six years in jail. Now free, Guppy tells his story in this book. He reveals his wild adventures with Lord Spencer, of gold smuggling in India, of dealings with gunmen in New York, and his passionate love for his wife Patricia.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 309 pages
• Publisher: Blake Pub (October 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857821599
• ISBN-13: 978-1857821598
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,151,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great story, June 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Roll the Dice (Hardcover)

Although this book is let down by poor editing, the story itself is something of a classic. In many parts hilariously recounted, Roll the Dice tells how a brilliant young man who seemingly had it all staged an armed robbery of precious gems in a New York hotel and manged to convince Lloyds of London to pay out some £2M in insurance moneys. The fact that Lloyds had, in the eyes of the author, been responsible for his father's loss of an equivalent sum, was sweet revenge to him. Although some would see this as a convenient explanation, to be fair to Guppy, he makes clear that this was only part of his motivation, with sheer bravado and boredom with the gilded society in which he mixed playing at least as important a role. Two years after his sting against the world's largest insurers, however, he was betrayed by a supergrass who had struck a deal with police officers in return for leniency for his own criminal endeavours and Guppy found himself in Brixton jail. For me the most fascinationg aspect of the story is the insight given into the author's character. As a result of his exploits, Guppy became for a number of years a favourite subject matter for the British media - hardly surprising since his story could have come straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster - but his portrayal at their hands was at best two dimensional and, more often than not, plain libellous. One cannot help feeling that many of the criticisms levelled agaisnt him were prompted by envy and a sense of schadenfreude. The reader detects an interesting mix of anarchism and puritanism in the author, together with a profound dissatisfaction with the privileged and vacuous sloane ranger set with which he came into contact as a result of his upbringing. It is quite clear, for example, that he feels more at home with the armed robbers and assorted villains he meets in prison, and whom he describes as more interesting, more honourable and, paradoxically, more honest than the cocktail party set he found so dull. Interesting too is his friendship with Earl Spencer, brother of the Princess of Wales, with whom he bonds despite his background and not because of it, and also his love affair with a working class girl from the North of England whom he marries and with whom he has a child. Although a number of reviewers have labelled Guppy "arrogant" as a rsult of his actions, this seems a faulty description. Far from being arrogant, Guppy comes across as an intelligent and able young man with a sense of humour who feels empathy with those less fortunate than himself, such as his fellow inmates in jail, and as someone who has a deep sense of loyalty towards his family and friends. One suspects that it is his hatred of the media and his contempt for the upper echelons of English society and of the establishment whom he regards as hypocritical and immoral that have, in fact, earned him the label "arrogant." Rather, Guppy is a character with which any buccaneer from Elizabethan times or any 19th Century Anarchist would have identified. The world would surely be a duller place without such people.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Self centered, arrogant, semi-fictional autobiography, May 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Roll the Dice (Hardcover)

As one who has personal knowledge about the investigation into Mr. Guppy, I think that he attempts to portray an extreme act of greed, and the fact that he got caught into a Robin Hood type of scenario. He eliminates most embarrassing mistakes, and focuses on how brilliant he is. Tis a shame, as the story could have been quite good.

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just another crime story, January 19, 2009

By 

angelpride "Sam" (NY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Roll the Dice (Hardcover)

One of the previous reviewers, using the name `Unforgiven', is in fact none other than the informant in the Darius Guppy story, a Peter Risdon.

This can be seen at [...] This is important because I think there is a different angle to this book, which I enjoyed very much, than other reviewers have pointed out. So while the whole Darius Guppy trial in the UK was a sensation because of the Royal connections, a jewellery robbery in a New York hotel, an act of vengeance against Lloyds of London (a large UK insurance company who had bankrupted Guppy's father along with many other `names'), keeping one step ahead of the law and all the other ingredients of a Hollywood movie, in fact underneath all of that is a another tale, the tale of a man, (the informant), who became obsessed with the other members of the team, in particular Darius Guppy, and how he was driven to betray his accomplices, not just to save his own skin from the cops but also by a bitter jealousy towards people who represented everything he wanted to be in life. It's also interesting how far the authorities were prepared to go to protect their informant in order to nail the rest of the team.

I won't spoil the plot for other readers but this is a really fascinating tale, not just because of its glamour factor but also because it deals with the old themes of envy and betrayal.

I recommend it as a great read and also recommend viewers to visit the website above because it contains a lot of useful material and evidence about how Darius Guppy and his partners were eventually caught, one year after pulling off their sting.