Dean Jobb, author of “A Gentleman and a Thief,” discusses his passion for writing about true crime stories and bringing history to life creatively. He focuses on the Jazz Age thief, Arthur Barry, known for daring jewel heists and his gentlemanly demeanor during crimes. Jobb delves into Barry’s heists, interactions with high society, and relationship with his wife, Anna Blake. The lack of sophisticated investigative techniques in that era allowed Barry to outsmart law enforcement, adding a thrilling element to the narrative. The cat-and-mouse game between Barry and Chief Detective Harold King highlights Barry’s antihero persona, making him a character that readers might root for despite his criminal activities.

click here to buy Dean Jobb’s book A Gentleman and a Thief: The Daring Heists of a Jass-Age Thief.

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[0:00]Guys, this is Gary Jenkins. As you all know, you regulars know, I’m a retired intelligence unit detective of the Kansas City Police Department and now a podcaster. And I have a couple of documentary films that deal with the Kansas City Mafia. But today we’re not talking about me. Today we’re talking to Dean Jobe. He wrote a heck of a book. The publicist for the book producer sent me a copy of the book. I don’t read all these guys, as you know, but I do start reading them and I make notes from them. But this one, I started reading it and I loved it. I was hooked. I read the whole thing all the way through. It’s called A Gentleman and a Thief, The Daring Jewel Heist of a Jazz Age Rogue, Arthur Barry. Now, Arthur Barry was a jazz age rogue, if there ever was one. So let me, I’m gonna read you a review before we start talking. A top shelf work of true crime, Job tells Barry’s tale with both rigor and pathos. Painting a tender portrait of a crook who was never fearsome.

[1:02]This is liable to steal the reader’s hearts. That’s from Publishers Weekly, and it is a great book. There’s no doubt about it. So, Dean Jobes, welcome, and start off talking a little bit about your own writing history and how you got onto this story and some background on you, and then we’ll talk about the book. Well, I’m a former journalist, and over the years I’d written books. My beat as a reporter was covering the courts, covering criminal trials and anything going on in the courthouse. And my background was in history, and the two kind of collided in a nice way that I started writing features about old cases in Nova Scotia, Canada, where I live, and just got hooked with the storytelling, the way that true crime can give you a window on the past and dramatic events, interesting storylines. But you can also learn a lot about history. So about 10 years ago, Algonquin Books, my publisher, published Empire of Deception, and it was about a Chicago con man in the 20s, the jazz age. I love the era. Connection to me was when his Ponzi scheme collapsed, he hid out here in Nova Scotia. So I had some local ties to that story.

[2:12]My last book was called The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream about a Victorian era doctor who murdered as many as 10 people, most of them women, in three countries over a 15-year span. And it’s subtitled The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer because that was my focus. I wanted to know how he got away with it, which led me to understand a lot about the horrible...