The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum

The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss

By: Margalit Fox

Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld

America’s first great organized-crime lord was a lady—a nice Jewish mother named Mrs. Mandelbaum.

“A tour de force . . . With a pickpocket’s finesse, Margalit Fox lures us into the criminal underworld of Gilded Age New York.”—Liza Mundy, author of The Sisterhood

A PARADE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

In 1850, an impoverished twenty-five-year-old named Fredericka Mandelbaum came to New York in steerage and worked as a peddler on the streets of Lower Manhattan. By the 1870s she was a fixture of high society and an admired philanthropist. How was she able to ascend from tenement poverty to vast wealth?

In the intervening years, “Marm” Mandelbaum had become the country’s most notorious “fence”—a receiver of stolen goods—and a criminal mastermind. By the mid-1880s as much as $10 million worth of purloined luxury goods (nearly $300 million today) had passed through her Lower East Side shop. Called “the nucleus and center of the whole organization of crime,” she planned robberies of cash, gold and diamonds throughout the country.

But Mrs. Mandelbaum wasn’t just a successful crook: She was a business visionary—one of the first entrepreneurs in America to systemize the scattershot enterprise of property crime. Handpicking a cadre of the finest bank robbers, housebreakers and shoplifters, she handled logistics and organized supply chains—turning theft into a viable, scalable business.

The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum paints a vivid portrait of Gilded Age New York—a city teeming with nefarious rogues, capitalist power brokers and Tammany Hall bigwigs, all straddling the line between underworld enterprise and “legitimate” commerce. Combining deep historical research with the narrative flair for which she is celebrated, Margalit Fox tells the unforgettable true story of a once-famous heroine whose life exemplifies America’s cherished rags-to-riches narrative while simultaneously upending it entirely.

One of the most famous fences of the 19th and early 20th century!

This was an incredible look into a (for me) little known historical figure. The fact that she was one of the most famous criminals of her time blew my mind.

Great story

Stick with it - narrator starts flat and self conscience but soon drops into comfort and good story telling. A very interesting time and a great deal of social observation.

That she worked so well in a man’s world

I enjoyed the narration and the story of this Jewish woman as a criminal and a Jewish woman. She was clever.

An unimpressive biography

It’s an interesting story about a notorious crime boss but the presentation was simplistic and parts of this were mediocre. On some chapters the narrator just rambled on emotionlessly. On those chapters it was both boring and dry.

They familial name, Mandelbaum

Very enjoyable! Will recommend to others! Suspenseful! A very interesting historical fiction story! A calming voice for narration!