The Man Who Robbed the Pierre
The Story of Bobby Comfort and the Biggest Hotel Robbery Ever
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- £10.99
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- £10.99
Publisher Description
This Pulitzer Prize–winning author’s true account of the thief behind the famed 1972 heist is “an engrossing crime biography . . . [and] a fast-paced romp” (Kirkus Reviews).
Growing up in Rochester, New York, Bobby Comfort wanted to be a good something. It just so happened that he was great at being a criminal.
In January 1972, men in tuxedos robbed the Pierre, the luxurious Manhattan hotel, and got away with eleven million dollars’ worth of cash and jewelry. The police were baffled by how such a large-scale operation could go off so smoothly. The answer lay in the leader of the thieves, a man by the name of Bobby Comfort. He had taken to crime from a young age with card sharping and petty theft. Eventually, taking money from the rich was where he excelled. Sort of like Robin Hood—except for the part where he kept the loot himself—Comfort masterminded what was, at the time, the most lucrative heist in history, while appearing to his neighbors like an ordinary suburban family man.
In this blend of insightful biography and true crime, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Ira Berkow chronicles the story, using first-hand accounts to weave together a fascinating portrait of a criminal and “a corking good cops-and-robbers tale” (Library Journal).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The 1972 robbery of Manhattan's Hotel Pierre, the most lucrative heist of its kind, was exceptional only for the size of the loot (some $11 million) and the smooth expertise with which it was executed. New York Times columnist Berkow (Red, Carew uses the event as the hook on which to hang his biography of the man who masterminded it. Bobby Comfort of Rochester, N.Y., evidently never had an instinct that was not criminal, even as a child. Physically lazy and mechanically inept, he avoided regular employment and turned first to card sharping and then to robbery. He spent years in reform schools and prisons, but through his mastery of the law was able to shorten his sentences. He found robbing hotels (and Sophia Loren) a handy way to make money. But, despite Berkow's dramatic writing, this is not a major true-crime saga. Photos not seen by PW.
