The King of Diamonds: The Search for the Elusive Texas Jewel Thief

by Rena Pederson

The thrilling story of a brazen, uncatchable jewel thief who roamed the homes of Dallas high society—and a window into the dark secrets lurking beneath the surface of the Swinging Sixties. As a string of high profile jewel thefts went unsolved, "the King of Diamonds," as he was dubbed by the press, eluded police and the FBI for more than a decade and took advantage of the parties and devil-may-care attitude of the Swinging Sixties. Like Cary Grant in "To Catch a Thief," the King was so bold that he tip-toed into the homes of millionaires while they were watching television, or hosting parties. He hid in their closets. And dared to smoke a cigarette while they were sleeping not far away. Rena Pederson, then a young cub reporter at the Dallas Morning News, heard the police reports trickle in while she managed the night desk. With gymnastic skill, this thief climbed trees or crawled across rooftops to get into these sprawling mansions. He took jewels from heiresses, oil kings, corporate CEOs. These were not just some of the richest people in Texas; they were some of the richest people of their time. Scotland Yard and Interpol were on the look-out. But the thief was never caught and the jewels never recovered. To follow the tracks of the thief, Rena has interviewed more than two hundred people, from veteran cops to strippers. She went to pawn shops, Las Vegas casinos, and a Mafia hangout—and discovered that beneath the glittering façade of Dallas debutantes and raucaous parties was a world of sex trafficking, illegal gambling, and political graft. When one of the leading suspects was found dead in highly unusual circumstances, the story darkened. What seemed to be taken from the pages of an Edna Ferber story now crashed head-first into Mickey Spillane. Like the stories of Fantomas or Raffles, the odd psychological aspects of the The King of Diamonds give us different kind of crime story. Detectives were Why did the thief break into houses when his targets were inside, increasing the risk of being captured? Why did he hide in their closets? Many times, he was so close he could hear their breathing as they slept. As one socialite put it, “It was a very peculiar business.”

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, Book Club, History, Crime, Audiobook, Mystery

415 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 9, 2024

Reviews

[Abby Weber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great audiobook because I felt like I was listening to a podcast. Honestly, I lost interest in the jewel thief pretty early on. We don’t know who it is; we never learn who it is. And I really stopped caring. He was a boring thief. You know what was great? All the tales of 1960s Dallas. The political scandals and the mob and the CIA and underground casinos frequented by Hollywood elite. The glamorous lifestyle of Texas upper crust society set in an already-gaudy era. That was the story. I don’t care who “The King of Diamonds” is, but tell me more about the lifestyles of the naive but rich and famous of the 1960s.

[Heidi Holloway · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was absolutely fascinating. The amount of research and investigating the author did was amazing.
Incredibe insight on the era of Dallas in the 50s and 60s!
Very informative and very in depth. I couldn't put it down.
True crime in my favorite city in my favorite era. What a great book!

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. While looking for the jewel thief, Pederson was also uncovering Dallas places and people — Jack Ruby, Park Lane, the Hunt family, Turtle Creek, Stanley Marcus, the Highland Park police, Idlewild, oil, Harry Hines Boulevard, Oaklawn, Strait Lane, the Dallas Athletic Club, Campisi’s, and all the good and the bad of the 1950s and 60s. Pedersen did her research.

If you’re from “Dallas-Dallas”, read this now. 👏🏼

[LeahBethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Club Pick: The King of Diamonds: The Search for the Elusive Texas Jewel Thief.

A thoroughly researched account — perhaps too detailed at times! Having lived in the Highland Park area of Dallas as a nanny right after university, I found the people, their parties, and their homes all strikingly familiar. I was surprised, though, to learn that in the 1930s and 1940s, Dallas was such a hotspot for celebrities looking to gamble and have a good time — who knew?

[Sharon Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook version. The last half of it, I increased the speed to 150% just to be done with it. Exhausting to listen to relentless name dropping. The story got lost so many times with the ‘back story’ of minor people and places. Nice descriptions of the jewels, homes and various places throughout the metroplex. Overall-very tiresome book.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Stars

SUMMARY
This is a true story of a series of jewelry thefts in Dallas mostly in the 1950s 60s and 70s. Most of which happened in my neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods. It was fascinating. Apparently Dallas was a very happening place back then! It was quite the party scene and this thief absolutely had to have been right in the middle of it all!

WHAT I LOVED
there are very few books set in Dallas, I loved the Dallas setting. I also loved the history lessons and hearing about Dallas grew. The thefts themselves were such a mystery!

WHAT I DIDN’T LOVE
there were a couple times when it got a little redundant talking about who was who back in the day in Dallas. But most of that was interesting.

OVERALL
A must read if you live in Dallas but still worth reading if you do not.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting to a Dallasite but the descriptions of rich people dragged a bit. I’d like to see a movie made of this story.

[Ashley (findabooknook) B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved all of it! Dallas in the 1950s and 60s seemed like a CRAZY place! Lavish all night parties and wealth out for all to see. Drinking, mafia, gambling…you name it.

The author does a great job of bringing us the history of Dallas, painting a picture of the big personalities that shaped our city, and investigating who could have been behind a decade of diamond thefts and possibly why it was never solved. Although she comes to her own conclusion of who was likely the King of Diamonds.

Highly recommend if you are from Dallas.

[Ashley King · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow this book was such a well researched time in Dallas history! I thoroughly enjoyed it, but if you don’t know the city of Dallas, I don’t know if you would agree. I loved knowing the neighborhoods, streets, restaurants, ect that were brought up in the book. It did read more like a research project then a story.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of names, hard to follow. Overall uninterested in this jewel thief. Learning about the culture of the time period was very cool, best parts of the book. Too many introductions to characters that ended up being irrelevant.

[Stevie Demarest · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every dallas resident should read this

[Elizabeth Foreman White · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super well written, so interesting, but probably only interesting to people with ties to DFW or Texas. She gave so much detail it was extremely impressive and a normal person probably would’ve loved it but I just wanted to know who did it.

[Noel Rivenes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. Too long. Interesting to learn more about that period of Dallas’ history: the mob, the elite, the gambling and so forth. But it seemed like information was repeated during the different parts of the book.

Maybe 3.5⭐️

[Nathalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating window into mid-century Dallas and the oil wealth of its citizens. Kinda felt monotonous after a while.

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can’t help but feel that the story of a jewel thief, or thieves, that repeatedly victimized Dallas high society in the 1960s, was more of a framing story for a collection of mini biographies of the wealthy and connected in the Dallas Fort Worth area. We end up with some well-connected suspects, but no definitive answers.

My main takeaway from this book is that being rich and privileged doesn’t make you interesting. These people can lounge about in their mansions, count their money, go to their fancy parties, drink, smoke, gamble, show off all their expensive jewellery and still be boring as hell. This is lifestyles of the rich and tedious.

I guess this is an okay true crime book, but I would’ve liked it better if they’d actually caught the guy, or been allowed to.

[Ned Dockery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened as an audio book and I’m glad… it was fun to listen to all of the crazy stories, and sometimes the writing felt pretty cheesy, so I was happy to be listening to it instead of reading it

There were a million different people referred to throughout the book. They’d be mentioned once and then brought up again by their first name ten chapters later. Eventually I gave up on trying to remember who was who, and it turned out that that was fine

I loved learning about the wild tales of Dallas in the 60s. But if I think about them too much, they’re also very concerning. Definitely a new perspective on my hometown

[Lyndsey]

A fascinating read that is as much a mini-history of Dallas in the 50's and 60's as it is about the never-caught jewel thief to the rich and infamous of that time and place --especially interesting to me since DFW is from whence I hail. Wild to see the mom of a childhood friend interviewed and a whole chapter about the father of one of my mom's former beaus profiled as a mafia connection. Life is weird. History is fun, weird, and wild.

[Kerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an audiobook. I would have given it four stars but there were so many people discussed that it was hard to follow at times. I liked all the familiar Dallas places that are named and hearing about the city’s history. Overall I think it was good but way too long.

[Laura Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was so interesting! I listened to it and it was almost like listening to a true crime podcast without the over-production (a plus for me). It got a little tedious at the end. Would recommend! Thanks to Corinne for the recommendation!

[Steven Ott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reads like a compilation of society gossip stories. Not as fun as I thought it might be...

[Patty · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a book club read for me, but I just couldn't finish it. So much name dropping - it became a bore.

[Pete · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a long and tedious book and more about Dallas’ rich people than the anonymous cat burglar who only plays a minor role besides giving it a title. Nobody ever caught Dallas’ famous 1960’s jewel thief but no matter, Ms. Peterson, a former editor of our town’s morning paper, has created a platform for citing the biographies of most of his wealthy victims as well as the cops who pursued him. In between, she digresses to bore us with more Dallas trivia about our past local mafia members and other low life who hung around to provide her with extraneous gossip.

If you enjoy little anecdotes about the rich and famous of one glitzy American city of 50 years ago, and all their offspring in one tiresome volume, this guy might do it for you. I made it almost half way through and then skipped to the end with an eye roll and a happy sigh - thankful that I’d survived those times without a clue of what was going on in my own town.

[Ashley Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rena poured her heart and soul into this book! Such an interesting book on big name Dallas families and the landscape of the city during these notorious burglaries. She included a lottttt of details and sometimes I got lost in the story, but still a really good read, especially if you live in Dallas.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

The jewel thief mystery seems like a front story for an incredibly interesting and behind the scene history of Dallas previously obscured by the Assassination era.
The books documents so many anecdotes of corruption that you will come away feeling better about our world today.

[Kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pederson set out to solve a cold case in which an audacious cat burglar relieved the Dallas ultra-rich of millions of dollars’ worth of jewels over the course of a decade.

Her ultimate conclusion was far last interesting to me than was its gilded setting – a close-up of the people who made Dallas the city I live in today.

Pederson, a former journalist, has massive research muscles. Sometimes I would almost argue she got a little carried away – packing in so much back (back, back) story that she lost sight of her objective. But mostly I enjoyed the insights into the powerbrokers whose names are all over the city today.

For example, Stanley Marcus (yes, of Neiman Marcus) had commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to build his house but eventually backed out of the agreement. “He called off the deal when Wright refused to include adequate closets ‘for things you don’t need,’ Wright said. Nor would Wright include air conditioning. ‘Not necessary in the balmy Dallas climate,’ Wright decreed.”

Not every socialite or businessman had a name I recognized. But hearing how they built their wealth – and what they lost to the so-called King of Diamonds – was still fascinating. “After the King took $100,000 in jewels from a woman, she remarked to Capt. Fannin, ‘Thank goodness he didn’t get my good jewelry.’”

Another woman “had so much money that she once mistook a mailing with the town of Highland Park’s annual budget for a bill – and sent in a check to pay the total.”

I heard names that I can match to bridges I drive over and buildings I drive past. I read about the start of businesses that are now known around the world, not just in North Texas. I learned about the woman who started the Crystal Charity Ball in 1952 – and then noticed that Dallas Children’s Theater, where our church meets, added a wing roughly half a century later courtesy of a gift from the Ball.

On the more prosaic side, Pederson met with aging detectives to ask about their memories of her thieving target. “They met regularly at a Golden Corral restaurant in the suburb of Mesquite.” I drive past that restaurant once a week on my way to Aldi.

The mob makes multiple appearances, as do cattle kings, oil men (and women!) and tech pioneers. It’s a fascinating mini-biography of a city in one of its major growth spurts.

I mentioned the backstory sometimes going a little deep for me. My other hangup was the number of times Pederson referenced a literary or cinematic detective. Once or twice might have been charming, even effective, but there were so many they start to feel like cheap choices instead of snappy comparisons.

“As Raymond Chandler would have put it …”
“Just a Vivien Leigh refashioned her plantation drapes …”
“In the cinema world, this would be the cue for Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall …”

I know this sounds picky. But it was *so* frequent, it really bugged me.

If I could, 3.5. But I’ll round up to 4, because I love Dallas and I loved learning more about it.

[Janta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ebook note: narrative + photos compromised ~94% of the total book. Remainder was notes, etc.

2.5 stars, rounded up because I did mostly enjoy this book. An interesting but honestly kind of frustrating read. I always enjoy media about heists, and I hoped this book would be right in that niche. It was, but as the book progressed, I felt like Pederson lost sight of the main story. The bulk of the book is not about the crimes or the actual search for the thief, but about the extremely rich people who lived in Dallas during the years the thefts occurred. There was a lot of detail about the illegal gambling scene in and around Dallas and its ties to organized crime, and a wealth of detail concerning some of the victims...but also a lot of detail about people who were only peripherally relevant to the story. I understand why some of this was included -- it helped establish why all this expensive jewelry was to be found in Dallas -- but as I read, I couldn't help but think it obscured the ostensible narrative of the thefts and the years-long investigation into them. Pederson does reach a conclusion about who she thinks the thief was, but to me that conclusion felt disconnected from the rest of the book; the person she thinks the evidence points to is not mentioned very much prior to the conclusion, and it seemed to kind of come out of nowhere a bit. To be fair, this book was written a good 50+ years after the thefts; much of the evidence is long gone, and many of the people involved have passed away. Still, I wish there had been a bit of an evidence trail for the reader to follow through the story, rather than having the possible thief exposed in the very last section of the book.

[Sam Strite · Rating 4 out of 5]

4⭐️

You had me at 💎Jewels💎

Welcome to the swinging sixties! This was a time of glamour and glitz as oil money in Texas was growing astronomically. But now, a series of high profile jewel thefts are going unsolved, the press dubbed the elusive thief "the King of Diamonds."

Love love love. So as crimes go, I think being a jewel thief is pretty sexy, not gonna lie. My only issue with this book was, it was a little slow and there were a lot of names to remember. However, such a cool story and so many intriguing characters! It's hard to imagine that this was a real thing that happened! It just seems like jewel theft doesn't happen anymore so it was really cool to read about.

Would recommend to any fan of true crime! Also, literally every true crime I read always gets tied back to JFK... coincidence???

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It started with promise and soon became a veritable Who's Who of the most distastefully ostentatious of the area in which I grew up (gratefully ignorant of that demographic and blocks away in the little suburb of Richardson). It was fun to hear mention of some of my current stomping grounds in Ellis County, I admit, but all the back and forth time travel started to make me a little carsick.

The epilogue, the Where Are They Now, was my favorite part.

[Sarah Worley · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 ⭐️- as someone who lives in Dallas and is forever curious about the lifestyles of the rich & famous, this one was a fascinating read to me. There was a chunk of the book that was slow and anti-climactic. There were lots of people to keep tabs on, but I found the journalism thorough and well done.

[Meredith Sepehri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent history of colorful mid century oil and banking rich Dallas…the good, bad, & the ugly. The story drags a bit at times, but I love hearing the names & places I grew up with and the lore behind them! I had NO idea how corrupt Dallas was. Fascinating.