A true-crime caper about Arthur Barry, a jewel thief who charmed celebrities and millionaires, stole from Rockefellers and royalty, and pulled off the most audacious and lucrative heists of the Jazz Age.
For all the flickering diamonds and worsted suits, for all the references to Barry as a prince or aristocrat of thieves, it’s the story of a dissolute, empty and shallow life, too much of it spent in prison, that wears thin pretty fast ... The chapters are short, the energy propulsive, the research prodigious ... But if this aspires to be a big book, there’s not much big here.
