The First Great Train Robbery
The story is a fictionalised representation of the historical events that happened, although the setting can be considered quite accurate. The characters' names are changed in the novel; for example, the main protagonist William Pierce is changed to Edward Pierce and Edward Agar to Robert Agar. Crichton stated that he did not want to be constrained by what actually happened. The true story of the robbery can be found in David C. Hanrahan's book "The First Great Train Robbery".