Harry Harrison 
Stainless Steel Rat Is Born 
The Stainless Steel Rat Book 6

Young Jim di Griz has but one ambition in life – to become a master criminal, perhaps the greatest that his backwater homeworld, Bit O’Heaven, has ever seen. So that he can learn the ropes, he has to mix with the right people – or rather the wrong people. And for this kind of on-the-job training the best place to meet the worst villains is in prison. But even for a customer as slippery as Jim, getting behind bars isn’t easy.So Jim does a bank job, very badly, with the avowed intention of getting himself nicked . . .