The Gangster's Wife An Empire Built on Cards

For four decades, Margaret "Mags" McGraw was a keeper of secrets. Her husband Tam amassed a fortune through leading a safecracking gang before masterminding a spectacular £50 million drugs racket—and the success of both enterprises depended on skill, bravery, and, most of all, luck. Mags was a devotee of tarot cards and fortune-telling, so when Tam and his associates wondered whether luck would be with them, it was to her that they turned. But Mags discovered that the cards gave signs that warned of much more than years in prison cells: they predicted death. She lived not just with the awful knowledge that her friends would perish violently, but her cards also foretold when they would die. Furthermore, she learned that her own husband was also doomed to a fate that was unexpected to everyone but her. Tam died in the arms of the wife he called his "rock," while her secret lover frantically tried to save him. In The Gangster's Wife, Mags reveals her gripping life story, from being a London bus fare collector, through often hilarious days running an ice cream van during the infamous Glasgow ice cream wars, to managing a notorious bar, being an agony aunt to the toughest criminals around, hiding a secret love, and enjoying the companionship of a man who was murdered as the last century drew to a close.