Library Association’s Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. His previous books include Empire of Deception, which the New York Times Book Review called “intoxicating and impressively researched” and the Chicago Writers Association named the Nonfiction Book of the Year. Esquire magazine has hailed him as “a master of narrative nonfiction.” Jobb has written for major newspapers and magazines, including the Chicago Tribune and Toronto’s Globe and Mail and his monthly true crime column, “Stranger Than Fiction,” appears in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. He is a professor at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he teaches in the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction program.
Jobb applied the "Page 99 Test" to his new book, A Gentleman and a Thief: The Daring Jewel Heists of a Jazz Age Rogue, and reported the following:
From page 99:Visit Dean Jobb's website.“He was dressed to blend in with the posh surroundings, in a blue suit, pearl-gray tie, and black homburg. A brown leather briefcase completed the businessman-arriving-home look.” Arthur Barry, a clever and prolific Jazz Age crook – Life magazine later proclaimed him “the greatest jewel thief who ever lived” – was about to pull off the most audacious heist of his seven-year-reign as the king of New York’s cat burglars.Page 99 of my latest true crime book A Gentleman and a Thief: The Daring Jewel Heists of a Jazz Age Rogue, published by Algonquin Books in the U.S. and by HarperCollins Canada, plunges readers into the heart of the action. It’s 1925 and Barry is about to slip into a suite at New York’s Plaza Hotel and escape with a strand of pearls and other jewelry worth millions. His victim? Heiress Jessie Donahue, daughter of the founder of the Woolworth chain of five-and-dime stores and one of the wealthiest women in the country. For this book, the Page 99 Test works – readers who turn to this page first will catch the master burglar in the act.
Barry pulled off scores of meticulously planned break-ins on Long Island and in Westchester County, targeting the mansions and sprawling estates of New York’s ultra-rich. His victims included Percy Rockefeller, nephew of the founder of Standard Oil, Wall Street investment legend Jesse Livermore, and Oklahoma oil tycoon Joshua Cosden. When the Prince of Wales visited Long Island in 1924, he took the future King Edward VIII on a clandestine tour of Manhattan nightclubs, then stole jewelry from a member of the prince’s entourage, Lady Edwina Mountbatten.
The press dubbed him a “gentlemanly thief.” Barry sometimes donned a tuxedo and crashed parties, passing himself off as an invited guest before slipping upstairs to check out where jewels were likely to be stashed when he returned to break in. If his victims were awakened as he crept into their bedrooms, he assured them he was only there for the jewels and engaged in small talk to calm them down. Dorothea Livermore, wife of the Wall Street investor, convinced him to return two valuable rings he was about to take, claiming they had sentimental value. “I know he’s terrible,” she later told reporters, “but isn’t he charming?”
Barry’s haul of diamonds, pearls and other gems would have been worth at least $60 million today. His arrest in 1927 was not the end of his incredible story. A dramatic prison break, years as a fugitive, and a final shot at redemption lay in the future.
--Marshal Zeringue
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