In the Roaring Twenties—an era known for its flash and glamour as well as its gangsters and bootleggers—Arthur Barry used a combination of charm, cool-headedness, and shrewd observational skills to become one of America's most infamous jewel thieves. In A Gentleman and a Thief, Dean Jobb shares the stranger-than-fiction story of a young boy from Massachusetts who became a master cat burglar, took an English monarch on a tour of NYC, stole millions of dollars in jewels, and gave it all up for love.

If not for the extensive documentation and the note to readers that opens the book, Gentleman would seem like a work of fiction. Barry's life began ordinarily—born into a large, working-class Irish family in 1896—but by the age of fourteen, he had committed enough minor offenses that the local police considered him "a pretty bad boy." Barry had also ...