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Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the most notorious podcast I'm Eric Revenus.

So when I started this podcast four years ago, I decided that every subject I picked for the show would happen before 1970.

The year I was born, completely arbitrary of course. I mean everything before I was alive has to be history right?

Well obviously time continues to pass and number one and I've already broken my own cutoff date more than months already anyway.

Off the top of my head, the sunny list in episode and recently the Harper Lee, Willie Maxwell won. They come to mind.

This episode today actually marks my first leap into the 80s, 1980 actually. So not too far into the decade.

But it's such a great book I couldn't resist. And I think rules are made to be broken right? Especially silly ones like mine.

But it will definitely be an exception. I don't expect it too often. I've got gangsters, mobsters, gunfighters, serial killers aplenty in the pipeline.

Alright, let's begin.

It is so great to have as my guest today Peter Hullahan. He is a journalist and book review contributor for the first newspapers and the Associated Press.

He's written for crime reads, police won, salon in the Daily Mirror. He has also spent many years as an emergency medical technician.

The book he's here to talk about is called Norco 80, the true story of the most spectacular bank robbery in American history. So nice to talk with you.

Thanks Eric, I really appreciate it.

This is your first book, right?

Yeah, it certainly is. It's my first long form effort and I've done a lot of journalism and book reviews and trade magazines and all kinds of stuff. But this is my first book length effort.

I'd love to know how you came to choose it as a topic.

Well, the incident itself took place in Riverside, California and I grew up in Whittier, California just about a dozen miles, 20 miles away from the location where it happened.

I was 18 years old at the time and I was absolutely captivated by it when it happened. And I was a bit of a news junkie and a surf punk and mixture of all that.

But I was just absolutely astounded by the event itself. And so it always stuck with me. And when I did turn my sights to doing a book length effort, I started to look into different stories and Norco just really jumped out.

And once I started to dig in a little bit deeper and talk to some of the deputies and civilians and citizens and others involved, it just became apparent that there was a far deeper human story involved than just a bang bang shoot him out.

It certainly is one of the most astonishing events in law enforcement history. It is a wildfire fight and running gun battle. But there is also a huge human element. And that's really what convinced me that I, that this was a story that should be told.

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