At age 88, Doris Payne (assisted by Zelda Lockhart) looks back at her six decades as an international jewel thief. Diamond Doris is the first time Payne has revealed all aspects of her remarkable life, including the techniques she used to walk out of world-famous jewelry stores with rings worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. She and her five siblings were raised in a poor, segregated coal mining town in West Virginia by her boorish black father and doting Native American mother. Early on, Payne found she had a talent for stealing things. It put food on her family's table and quickly became a lucrative career when she began visiting high-end jewelry stores. By dressing elegantly and wearing an impressive wedding ring set, she became "a woman of class, not a woman on a mission to steal." And her constant chatter kept storekeepers off-balance long enough for her to perform a sleight of hand.
In 1974, she was apprehended in Monte Carlo after stealing a 10.5 carat diamond ring worth $550,000 at the time. She was held for nine months but not charged because the authorities couldn't find the ring she'd hidden. Rather than being intimidated by her incarceration, when she escaped, she devised and executed a four-day plan to steal from three top jewelers in London, Paris and Rome.
Payne is a feisty anti-hero who refused to be defined by the prejudices and mores of a hypocritical society. Even when she was forced to serve prison time in her 80s. Diamond Doris's captivating capers are audacious and entertaining. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant