A Burglar's Guide to the City

Product Description

Encompassing nearly 2,000 years of heists and tunnel jobs, break-ins and escapes, A Burglar's Guide to the City offers an unexpected blueprint to the criminal possibilities in the world all around us. You'll never see the city the same way again.

At the core of A Burglar's Guide to the City is an unexpected and thrilling insight: how any building transforms when seen through the eyes of someone hoping to break into it. Studying architecture the way a burglar would, Geoff Manaugh takes readers through walls, down elevator shafts, into panic rooms, up to the buried vaults of banks, and out across the rooftops of an unsuspecting city.

With the help of FBI Special Agents, reformed bank robbers, private security consultants, the L.A.P.D. Air Support Division, and architects past and present, the book dissects the built environment from both sides of the law. Whether picking padlocks or climbing the walls of high-rise apartments, finding gaps in a museum's surveillance routine or discussing home invasions in ancient Rome, A Burglar's Guide to the City has the tools, the tales, and the x-ray vision you need to see architecture as nothing more than an obstacle that can be outwitted and undercut.

Full of real-life heists-both spectacular and absurd-A Burglar's Guide to the City ensures readers will never enter a bank again without imagining how to loot the vault or walk down the street without planning the perfect getaway.

Top Reviews

Really sounded like a fascinating concept
by J. Chase (2 out of 5 stars)
May 28, 2016

Meh. Really sounded like a fascinating concept. But chapter after chapter goes nowhere and doesn't develop any cohesive points. A few interesting anecdotes thrown in here and there, but they are rare bright spots in an otherwise very dull and pedantic, overly long book.
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I loved the premise and wanted to like the book but ...
by Jane Doe (2 out of 5 stars)
June 3, 2017

I loved the premise and wanted to like the book but the writing was so ... somewhere between mediocre and bad ... I quit reading it about 25% in (and thus never attended the book club meeting that was discussing it). It wasn't grammar/ punctuation/ capitalization/ word choice type of bad writing, but rather an irritating choice of storytelling technique. Actually, it reminds me of those TV shows where before every & after every commercial they repeat the punchline that will be coming up at the end of the show, as if they can't trust the viewer to PAY ATTENTION TO THE STORYLINE long enough to remember on their own (or catch on if coming to the show part way in). Ugh! Don't recommend.

A totally different thread is that it did succeed in helping me feel less safe.

To his credit, though, many of the ideas and stories were interesting: I simply couldn't talk myself into continuing to suffer his style of storytelling ... which, I suppose, some might actually enjoy. Hey: lucky them.
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How burglars exploit architecture and infrastructure and what law enforcement does to up the ante
by Bernie Gourley,Top Contributor: Fantasy Books (5 out of 5 stars)
January 2, 2017

This is a book about how people exploit the architecture and infrastructure of cities to abscond with other people's property. Manaugh shows us both how the masterminds of burglary think outside the box "Ocean's Eleven" style, as well as how the dim dull-wits and junkies botch burglaries in hilarious ways. In the process, the author also shines a light on the ways in which the law enforcement community has had to update its technological and tactical capabilities to counter these threats.

The book contains seven chapters. The first chapter lays the groundwork, particularly through discussion of the aforementioned extremes. On one hand, there is George Leonidas Leslie, an architect turned bank robber who would build accurate mockups in order to accurately rehearse robberies, and--on the other hand--there is the guy who used a ghillie suit disguise in a rock and mineral museum (which, not unsurprisingly, featured barren rock displays [down-playing vegetation] such that the guy stuck out like a guy in a ghillie suit in a rock display.)

Chapter 2 details what Manaugh learned about burglary and the fight against it through his interviews with law enforcement, and-in particular-the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) helicopter unit.

The next chapter focuses on how different types of buildings are violated by burglars, and apartment burglaries are prominent in the discussion. This isn't just about how they breach the building, but how they discover when no one will be home.

Chapter 4 is entitled "tools of the trade" and it reflects upon the skill-set that Hollywood suggests is associated with burglars-i.e. lock-picking and safe-cracking--but which constitute a less common set of tactics than one might think. Burglars usually favor the messier / quicker approach of busting walls and locks.

Chapter 5 deals with a number of issues under the rubric of "inside jobs" but one of the most intriguing is its discussion of those who don't break in at all, but rather who hide inside the target building awaiting closing time.

The penultimate chapter is about that ever-present concern of burglars, the getaway. And sometimes the secret is what Black Widow says in "Captain America: Civil War": "The first rule of being on the run is walk, don't run." The final chapter is a wrap-up, including a conclusion to the George Leonidas Leslie story that was brought up in the first chapter.

There are notes and citations at the end of the book. There are no graphics. I think this book could have benefited from graphics. However, the author displayed such skill with language and story-telling that I didn't seem to notice (or care) at the time of reading. I suspect Manaugh didn't want to present too much detail for fear of being seen as an actual manual for crime, which this clearly is not.

I found this book fascinating, and think you would enjoy it if you have any interests in cities, security, civil engineering, architecture, or just have a healthy curiosity about how buildings and cities work.
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Super interesting and well-written
by somnomania (5 out of 5 stars)
May 13, 2019

The developers of the Dishonored video games recommended this book, and I can see why. It's not necessarily a topic I would've been interested in otherwise, which is a shame, because all the info covered in it is extremely interesting. Burglary and architecture as they relate to each other are explored in depth throughout history, because they've been intertwined for as long as humans had belongings that were desirable to others, and places to put them. The different types of urban environments shaping the types of burglary present in them was also fascinating to read about; how the prominence of highways and car traffic in Los Angeles led to the need for a helicopter-based police network, and how the density of London spawned closed-circuit monitoring at street level, on practically every street. The book also delves into the idea of smart cities (which is concept that's becoming more a reality every year) and how those would be burgled, and the history of how burglary itself has been defined (going from "unlawful entry of a house" to some of the absurdly specific constraints that have mostly been added for singular instances).

As someone who plays video games, often with stealth components or a need for building a secure base, it was especially interesting to read about the ways in which professional burglars view architecture and property. I always site things with as few illicit entry options as I can, even when it's not necessary, whether it's something like Minecraft where I might have to worry about tunneling up from underneath or building a giant pillar at the edge of my property line and dropping in from above, or a game where I have to worry about zombie hordes drawn automatically to my location, and how they might get to me. As it relates to Dishonored, where you truly are moving through a three-dimensional space and avoiding being seen, it was easy to see how it inspired the developers to provide less-obvious options for players. I'm thinking specifically of a point in Dishonored 2 where I spent close to a half an hour trying to figure out how to get into a closed room, and finally turned to the internet for a walkthrough that could help nudge me the right way; the solution was incredibly visible, if not for that thing I'd been taking advantage of all game, which is that humans, in general, don't often look up. There was an open transom window over the door to the room that I could get up to and go through. Now I know, and while I can't do things in most video games like pull a dumpster up to a building and slowly chip away at the wall from within it until I can get in without being seen, the book did give me some more insight into things. Doors and windows are the obvious choice, the ones law-abiding citizens use; burglars go through everything else, walls, ceilings and floors, in the behind-the-scenes spaces of every building.
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Like other reviewers here
by Amazon Customer (3 out of 5 stars)
June 5, 2018

Like other reviewers here, I was off-put by the tedious writing... and what felt like filler material. As a buyer, I thought this was a great topic. I'm t thinking that's exactly what the writer thought as well. As the topic progressed, I began to sense that there was less to this topic than I had imagined. Similarly, I felt that the writer encountered the same ditch, thus defaulting to fulfilling his writer/deal obligations and getting out of Dodge as cleanly as possible.
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Not great if you're a true crime buff
by S. Greve (2 out of 5 stars)
September 16, 2016

Not great if you're a true crime buff. A Burglar's Guide to the City reads more like a 300 page architectural history thesis than a book about burglary.

I get the idea the author wanted to communicate, that architectural design and burglary are mutually-influential on each other, but that's kind of a nebulous point to make, and not one that anybody would really argue against in the first place.

The book is at its best when it's indulging in true crime anecdotes, describing famous burglaries, the burglars who got away with it, and the people who dovetail with either. Unfortunately it drops the ball several times by not paying off some of these anecdotes and just generally over-defining terms.
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A little overwrought
by Ernst Schoen-rene (3 out of 5 stars)
May 2, 2016

As a former professional burglar and architecture enthusiast, I wanted to have more of a roundup of exotic crimes. Instead, we spend a lot of time on mundane things, like ride-alongs with the LAPD helicopter. The prose is often quite overwrought when it's not warranted.
As the author says, the truth is that most burglary is mundane and not carried out by master thieves. That's true, but it's also not terribly interesting. Even the parts in which he explores the relationship between the built world and the criminals who find other ways to use it seem flaccid. I would have like more like the first chapter with its false doors and secret warehouses.
The modern world has plenty to offer to the crime aficionado too, with all of the digital crime that happens. Digital crime often involves a large amount of breaking and entering, or at least clever distribution of thumb drives. That would have been interesting, had he touched on it.
The author references the classic book by Harry Houdini - The Right Way to do Wrong, which sits on my bedstand. It's a much better book about the strange world of crime and expectations.
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Fails to deliver
by K Booth (2 out of 5 stars)
May 25, 2016

I'm going to save you some time and give you the entire take away from this book here: Burglars do not use the architectural features of buildings as they were intended, often resorting to going through walls, ceilings or floors to gain entry.

But instead of creative capers, the author gives us mundane stories about police ride alongs and interviews he conducted. This book would better be titled, "My experiences researching a book about burglary."

A great deal of space, for instance, is given to the world of hobby lock pickers and the author's own efforts to learn the skill. At the end of it all he informs us lock picking is irrelevant because burglars don't bother with picking locks, they force entry or find other means of getting into a building. Then why include this information at all?

When actual crimes are mentioned, they are given brief space and left me wanting more details. It felt as if more time was spent explaining the fictional plots of films and books than of real-life crimes.
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Good anecdotes, but that's it.
by Federico (3 out of 5 stars)
July 2, 2017

Good narrative, lots of anecdotes, but not precisely what I had in mind.

I expected something more along the line of how to counter architectural weaknesses in order to increase your safety, but the author came time and again to stories of how you can bypass a deadbolted door by cutting holes trough drywall.

Don't get me wrong, he did a lot of research, and has lots of information, so perhaps I didn't see the forest for the trees.
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A Masterpiece of Architectural Theory
by prairiephyll (5 out of 5 stars)
September 20, 2019

Written by the author of BLDG BLOG, which is an uniquely analytical architectural blog that is highly recommended by professionals in that field, a Burglar's Guide is an in depth study into buildings, security and the vulnerabilities that lie therein and referenced with historical crimes inherent in this type of undertaking. Geoff Manaugh has a keen sense of architecture which he observes from a unique perspective.

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