The first comprehensive biography of the godfather of Australian bushranging - Frank Gardiner - leader of the Lachlan gang and mastermind of the largest gold heist in Australian history.

Atop the hierarchy of Australian bushrangers sits Ned Kelly - the ultimate outlaw - and just below him, the tragic figure of Ben Hall, who joined a gang led by a man whose name today is less well known, but in his time was much more famous than any other: Frank Gardiner. Mastermind of the largest gold robbery in Australia's history, Gardiner led an extraordinary life, the full telling of which is long overdue.

In a tough country and among a group of tough men, Gardiner was the toughest of them all. But while he engaged in gunfights with police to evade capture, he was always courteous and could lay claim to never killing anyone, and never stole from those who couldn't afford to be robbed. He went by three different surnames in his lifetime and spent almost half of it behind bars, including at some of the colonies' most notorious penal institutions: the Pentridge Stockade, Cockatoo Island and Darlinghurst Gaol.

But if Gardiner was never quite the Robin Hood he sometimes imagined himself to be, he was nevertheless a natural leader, and a man capable of inspiring a motley bunch of stockmen and drifters to become the most effective and successful bushranging gang in the country's history. His Lachlan gang operated with a clockwork efficiency that culminated in the robbery of the Gold Escort at Eugowra Rocks, and from 1861 to 1863 it held reign over the roads of the Western Plains of New South Wales.

Richly detailed, The Golden Gang shines a new light onto Gardiner's remarkable life - one that ended in shocking tragedy - and reinstates him in the pantheon of Australian outlaw heroes.