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

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.

©2024 Margalit Fox (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“A tour de force . . . With a pickpocket’s finesse, Margalit Fox lures us into the criminal underworld of Gilded Age New York, with excursions into the art of larceny and the finer points of safecracking. The portrait of Marm Mandelbaum is irresistible: In Fox’s lush prose, you can feel the softness of the silk and see the brilliance of the diamonds she amasses and profitably passes on. This book is pitch perfect.”—Liza Mundy, author of The Sisterhood

“Fox effortlessly pulls the reader into the grimy world of Gilded Age Manhattan. At the center of it all, we meet one of the most distinctive lawbreakers I’ve ever encountered—Mrs. Mandelbaum was not only a schemer but a dreamer, who saw running a crime ring as the rare way a woman could get ahead in a ruthless metropolis. This book is so full of twists, it makes you want to break out the popcorn.”—Rachel Syme, staff writer at The New Yorker

“Margalit Fox has a delightful talent for breathing life into the dead to illuminate some of the world’s most fascinating people, and Fredericka Mandelbaum may be one of her most interesting subjects yet. A true-crime saga from America’s golden era of graft and grift that reads like the prequel to Oceans 11.”—Daniel Schulman, author of The Money Kings

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.

An astounding an American woman

The narration and story of this very compelling American woman during the Victorian age had me spellbound. I literally could not stop listening. So much information about life in America, immigrants, poverty and her ingenious planning and running of the organization. It was masterful and brilliant.
I kept reminding myself. I never learned this in school, ever. Definitely a book worth a listen!

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.

They familial name, Mandelbaum

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

History

What a woman! Even though she was a criminal, I loved her! Very interesting great narrator

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.

A waste of time!

A rambling, disjointed presentation. Might have been ok for a 4 page magazine article. I tried….but after 3 chapters just gave up.