Bobby Comfort wanted to be a good something. He turned out to be a great criminal.
January 2nd, 1972: Men in tuxedos rob the Pierre, a New York hotel. They get away with $11 million worth of cash and jewelry. The police are baffled by how large-scale a heist could go off so smoothly.
The answer was in the leader of the thieves, a man by the name of Bobby Comfort.
Comfort took to crime from a young age, card sharping, petty theft, and eventually robbery. Taking money from the rich, though, was where he excelled. Like Robin Hood (only keeping the loot himself), Comfort masterminded what was, at the time, the most lucrative heist in history.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ira Berkow chronicles the crime, using first-hand accounts to weave together a ripping cops-and-robbers yarn, and a portrait of a truly American rogue.