Customer Reviews

Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I read this book as it received a lot of publicity on initial release. I didn't find it to be a fast, compelling story of a dangerous jewel thief. Rather, I found it to be a tale of a common thief with a substantial amount of time spent on normal legal proceedings and life as a fugitive. While his life was much more normal than you may expect by reading the title, I still found it to be a very compelling read.

Mason starts the book as a teenager who has some minor run-ins with the law while living in Cleveland Ohio. He stumbles in to a life as a jewel thief while marrying, raising kids, and living a fairly normal life as an apartment manager.

The book really revs up with a move to South Florida in the 70s. Florida was exploding with drugs, crime, and wealthy northeners living in ocean front condos with expensive jewels. Mason describes some of his successful heists but the more interesting story is his relationship with the police. Also, there is a comical sideline of him buying a small ocean front home to rent where the renters continually turn out to be drug runners using his house as a delivery point.

The last part of the book has little to do with jewel thefts and more to do with family and escaping the law. Overall, I found this to be a worthwhile story to read. But "a master jewel thief" is really only about 40% of the story. That may be enough for most readers as it was for me.

The first hundred pages of this book were enthralling, but after that is was more of an ego driven story about how much smarter he was than anyone else. The first hundred pages covered his develpoment as a thief, "scores", and how he combined this with his family and day job. I couldn't put it down. But soon after that the book turned to life behind bars, Mason duelling with the police, and a great deal on how he and his friends were much more itelligent than the DA's and police. Who he painted as angry, revenge fueled bullies. Certainly, this book is his side of the story and needs to be told, but the latter half of the book doesn't complete the energy he showed in the first half. I went from enticed to bored in about ten pages.

Highly recommended. Can't tell if the penetrating insights into the development of an enormously talented criminal are his or his co-writer's, but for sure Lee Gruenfield has brought all his thriller-writing skills to bear on this amazing tale. Should go down as a classic in the "true crime" genre.

...because it's too big to move.

Mason is a terrific thief, and his thoughts on thieving should be of interests to the criminal justice professional, the cautious jewel owner, and, well, aspiring jewel thieves across this great nation. From Mason I've learned the value of working without partners, developing my upper body strength, and never ever thinking that my urge to steal shouldn't be satisfied.

To be fair, the tales of his crimes are entertaining. But as someone else noted, the stories of his crimes are interspersed with long anecdotes that basically revolve around how much everyone loves him and how good he is at everything he tries.

Half the book is an interesting look at a master criminal at work. Reading the other half is a chore that is best forgotten.

If you're interested in reading a self-congratulatory exercise in ego, combined with self-serving justifications for criminal activity, this book is for you. The title (and the cover photography) promises stories of daring heists by a thief who mingles, tuxedo-clad, among the bejeweled and glittering. The number of pages devoted to actual jewel thieving are few and far between. We learn a great deal more than is interesting about his legal problems (and what exactly makes him a master if he's been caught?), his relationships with women, his involvement with Mob figures and drug deals... all told with great attention to the number of times Mason can climb up a rope using only his amazing upper-arm strength. In the last seven of 358 pages, Mason takes the time to admit that perhaps his chosen profession was less than acceptable and to say that - at this late date - that perhaps he had inflicted more than financial damage when he stole, and gee, he's kinda sorry about that. Borrow this one from the library if you must read it; the man doesn't deserve a cent in royalties.

Unlike conventional accounts of talented criminals, this book takes us farther into the mind of a fascinating man, examining his development and motivations and giving us exciting, often moving gimpses into what life is like during those times when he is not out stealing fabulous jewels. We hear about people being "on the lam" for long periods of time, but rarely get to know what it really means to be hiding in plain sight. To me, that was almost as interesting as the actual robberies, and those were incredible. My highest recommendation to all readers.

I read a copy from the local library. It was a slog to finish. A long, tedious, brag-fest.

He eventually claimed remorse for his crimes, but think about it: He wrote a book to sing his own praises and to profit from the crimes. Most people I know who are truly remorseful don't talk about the subject of their shame, but would rather move forward/beyond.

He says he's gone almost completely legit. "Almost" legit??? It would seem like either you are or you aren't. His "almost" is that he's still hiding stolen goods and fencing them when his chosen lifestyle exceeds his income (pg 356).

Please learn from my mistake and don't bother reading this book. I can't remember reading a book with a central character that I disliked as much.

The detailed accounts of Mason's cat burglary exploits does indeed hold the reader's attention. It was more work to slog through the legal section where he feuded with the police and his lawyers. His jail time was interesting, as was his family life, but ultimately I began to resent his attitude.
The book celebrates his daring robberies of the rich (Armand Hammer, Phyllis Diller) and the remorse at the end of the books seems merely token. He's sorry he got caught, sorry it hurt his family, but his motivation for stealing irked me and detracted from the account. It was mostly the thrill of defeating the security and plotting it out, more than needing the money, that drove him. Fairly candid, somewhat insightful, and certainly readable. Recommended for true crime fans.

In the 1960s when Bill Mason was in his twenties, he began a life of crime, stealing jewelry. As he became more proficient at his profession, he raised the ante soon taking gems from a virtual who?s who of 1960s-1970s Hollywood. Such notables like Phyllis Diller, the Cleveland Mafia chief, and Bob Hope were among his victims. Mr. Mason especially seemed to enjoy a caper involving a perfect security system that no cat burglar could crash. Besides meticulous planning of the theft, Mr. Mason constantly states that the problem with a100% burglar proof security system is somewhere a human is involved; meaning windows left open, systems not turned on, etc.

This true crime memoir initially leads readers to feel Mr. Mason sounds like a real life Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief. However, that turns a bit negative when it feels as if the author is boasting about his daring deeds that led to little jail time, but also the author shows some remorse that his profession has had a negatively profound impact on his family. Well written and fascinating, the true crime biography audience will take a kind of morbid delight in CONFESSIONS OF A MASTER JEWEL THIEF, but count your rings afterward.

Harriet Klausner

Bill Mason had me in his book's prologue, in which he describes at length how he stole a fortune in jewelry from Armand Hammer's Fort Lauderdale apartment. The job entailed a harrowing walk--in the dark, during a storm--along the slippery ledge that skirted Hammer's building, 18 inches wide and 15 stories up. This particular heist is just one of many carefully planned, often extremely dangerous, and highly lucrative robberies that Mason details in his autobiography, Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief, which was first published in 2003 (and was co-written with Lee Gruenfeld). For much of his life Mason was a sort of gentleman thief, who pocketed the jewelry flaunted by the rich and famous--the list of his victims reads like a passenger manifest from the Love Boat--and who never carried a weapon or took part in violent crimes. Mason lays bare his criminal record in Confessions (the statute of limitations has run out on all his crimes), but he also discusses the uglier side of his lifestyle, the effect that his avocation (he never really needed the money) had on his family.

Simply put, this is one of the most interesting books I've ever read. Mason's discussions of his various scores are riveting, inherently dramatic and very well told:

"I'd envisioned the whole trip with my back to the wall, but after about ten feet of futilely wiping rain from my eyes and imagining my feet sliding out from under me in a heel-to-toe direction, I turned around and hugged the wall instead. I wiggled my feet slightly with each step, feeling for any changes in traction, and the way my shoes were sliding on that slick surface started up a sickening feeling in my belly."

The details he provides about the logistics of his criminal undertakings are also fascinating. He writes about picking locks, for example, and "prospecting" for leads and negotiating with fences. And I love the book's prose style, which is straightforward and lucid.

One of course has qualms about what Mason did, not only to his victims but even more so to his family. But the author has qualms too. His book is a thoughtful, very honest consideration of the life he's led, and clearly the product of a great deal of painful introspection. Nor does Mason make any excuses for his actions: he's one of the bad guys, and he says as much. But he could have been worse.

Confessions drags a bit in its final chapters, but that's the only negative in an otherwise extraordinary book. This one reminds me of how rewarding a great piece of nonfiction can be.

-- Debra Hamel