Brazen jewel thief targets Dallas’ elite
Rena Pederson moved to Dallas in 1970 for her first reporting job. On one overnight shift, she saw a dispatch about a thief known as the King of Diamonds. In at least 40 burglaries over a decade, he had stolen several million dollars’ worth of jewels from Dallas’ elite.
His Majesty was brazen, often breaking in when the family was home. He’d climb up to a second-floor balcony, jimmy a door and walk into the victims’ bedroom while they slept, find the jewelry and leave the way he came in.
Pederson’s decision to investigate the crimes 50-plus years after they were committed is equally audacious. Even she concedes it was something of a fool’s errand: “The trail was cold as a morgue. ... Most of the victims and suspects were dead. And most of the records had been discarded.”
She interviewed more than 200 cops, victims and neighbors. The result is as much a sociological study of upper-crust Dallas society as a true-crime story, enlivened by Pederson’s sprightly writing style.
Despite police’s best efforts, the thief continued to outfox and amaze them. One told Pederson it was virtually unprecedented for the thief to stay in one area as long as he did — given his climbing abilities, he was assumed to be a man — and not get caught.
Because the thief knew the layout of the houses, suspicion centered on people who traveled in or near the same circles. The Neiman Marcus jeweler who sold many of the items that were stolen was investigated. A hairdresser the socialites confided in was considered, as were two ne’er-do-well brothers who’d worked their way into high society.
“King of Diamonds” is an enjoyable read, in large measure because of
Pederson’s extensive, highquality research, obtaining compelling info from and about her subjects.
“When people look back on the King of Diamonds era, they don’t remember the excesses — and inequalities — as much as they remember the great flair and style,” Pederson concludes. Which is exactly the way she wrote this book. — Curt Schleier, Minneapolis Star Tribune
In “The Great Wave,” a cultural survey
of the discontented present, Michiko Kakutani takes on a vast theme. But like the storming waters in the Hokusai print on the cover of “Great Wave,” the topic of chaotic change is so powerful it comes close to overwhelming the book.
The new book reads as a sequel to “The Death of Truth,” Kakutani’s 2018 warning about how disinformation had chipped away at objective truth. In the new book, she is both embedded in the contemporary tumult and casting an eye backward. Viewing today as a “hinge moment” and frightened by what she sees (inequality, polarization, violence), Kakutani looks at other such moments in history. What she finds is sobering, though not without hope.
In one of those moments, disruptions that flowed from the invention of the printing press, she finds present-day parallels. Just as the internet supercharged crackpot conspiracy theories and access to basic knowledge, Gutenberg’s invention spread superstition and pseudoscience while also kick-starting the Age of Reason. Kakutani expresses optimism that like in the past, we can find ways of “grappling with the mayhem created by new technologies,” such as artificial intelligence.
There are moments in “Great Wave” where Kakutani’s thesis is hard to discern. Her concern about the history-proven potential for the disarray of hinge moments to be harnessed by fascists is well founded; she convincingly deploys Hannah Arendt for that argument. But her narrowly progressive lens limits the range of outcomes that she sees for our current era.
In some ways, “The Great Wave” is as chaotic as its subject. Because Kakutani is such a confident and compelling writer, she always carries the reader along — even if it’s sometimes in the wrong direction.