Queen of Thieves

The True Story of "Marm" Mandelbaum and Her Gangs of New York

By: J. North Conway

Narrated by: Suzanne Toren

Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's Summary

Queen of Thieves is the gritty, fast-paced story of Fredericka "Marm" Mandelbaum, a poor Jewish woman who rose to the top of her profession in organized crime during the Gilded Age in New York City. During her more than twenty-five-year reign as the country’s top receiver of stolen goods, she accumulated great wealth and power inconceivable for women engaged in business, legitimate or otherwise. The called Mandelbaum the nucleus and center of the whole organization of crime in New York City. Having emigrated from Germany in 1850, she began her climb to the top of the crime world as a peddler on the rough-and-tumble, crowded streets of the city. By 1880, she had amassed a fortune estimated at more than $1 million. Mandelbaum was known for running an orderly criminal enterprise. She enlisted the services of an extensive network of criminals of every ilk and bribed police officials, politicians, and judges. If someone wanted to move stolen goods, needed protection from the law, or sought money to finance a caper, Marm was the person to see.

In 1884, Mandelbaum escaped from the clutches of Pinkerton detectives, who were casing her house, and fled to Canada. Mandelbaum lived out the rest of her life in luxury on a small farm with her family and ill-got fortune. Hundreds of people turned out for her funeral. Dozens of people later reported to police that they had their pockets picked at the service.

©2014 J. North Conway (P)2014 Audible Inc.

a bit repetitive

Interesting story of how one immigrant paid her bills. But a bit repetitive in a range of details...especially regarding her height, weight and appearance.

underwhelming

Mostly newspaper cuttings from the period and conjecture. I was honestly hoping for more, because I really do think its a fascinating period and she was a fascinating personage of her time...

very good read.

I thought I knew New York history, I was wrong. I learned a lot of new facts about the Five Points.

informative

Great material but the presentation needs work. I think this book is better consumed in written form. that numerous sources cited cause unnecessary repetition of content.

Reads as too much of a thesis paper, less like historic story

Subject is interesting, but content is Very redundant, most facts and statements are repeated over and over. And it reads more as a college thesis paper than a published book. Shame. The reader and base story are good.

Why hasn't Netflix gotten their hands on this?

Fast paced and absolutely astonishing story of a women who was completely out of this world. Why write fiction when there are stories like this. I would love to see this on the screen and way to intricate for just a movie, make it a show!

Every time.

Boring. A stereotype existed about her so she spent years proving it true. Brilliant.

Worth a listen

I like this because it had a lot of information about other notorious characters of the era. I did however wonder, especially towards the end.

Repetitive

Vague, doesn’t say anything, repetitively. No book, with proper editing all the information will fill 2-3 pages at most.

Really repetitive...

The narration is a bit droll and the storyline is repetitive. We get it, she was tall, large and Jewish and paid the police and the criminals. Every other sentence does not need to declare this.
Too bad because the history could have been presented in a really engrossing way.

Really difficult

I found this extremely difficult from start to finish. Narration lacks emotion and vocal range, seems very monotonal. I struggled to keep focused to follow the storyline, spoken with very little pause, almost rushed and spat at you rather than read to engage you, took me ages to work out the random dates and titles were references being quoted. The storyline seems to be rather all over the place but the narration has me that thrown I really don't think I followed the storyline well because of it.

Fascinating story

I enjoyed this true story. Narrator was a bit bland but the story was very good.