Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World's Most Notorious Jewel Thief

A story that I hope is turned into a movie. A woman, a Black woman, who had the jewelry world in her hands. Great read and glad someone captured this interesting story.

Doris Doris Doris...its really hard to not give away details of the life of Doris Payne but I will say this, every time I turned the page, wherever she was in the world, I was right there with her. I laughed, cried and held my breath every time I thought she was caught. Can't wait to see the movie.

I felt like I was traveling, experiencing and learning from decades and decades of Doris’s life! This was beautifully written!

Absolutely a great read! I recommend this book if you like memoirs or autobiographies! It keep me interested and I read EVERY time I had free time.

If you picture an international jewel thief pulling off heists at places like Cartier and Bulgari in the 1970s/1980s, the person you picture is probably not Doris Payne, a Black woman who grew up in a coal-mining town in West Virginia. But with confidence, elan, and charm, Doris pulled off some truly astonishing heists. This memoir, put together with help from a ghost writer, just skims over the surface. We learn about Doris’s early years, in which she watched her father, a miner, abuse her mother. She became single-mindededly focused on both finding a way to protect her mom and vowing to never put herself in a position to be abused by a man. An early experience with stealing a watch led to more and more daring thefts of jewelry as she got older. Addicted to the thrill as much as the money, she progressed to bigger and bigger jobs even as she became a mother of two and a source of financial support to her mother after she finally leaves her marriage. She talks at length about her relationships with both her married Jewish fence and a Black man who also has ties to the criminal life, both of whom she held at arm’s length. Her technique was straightforward: she’d dress well, with enough jewelry to be convincing as a woman of means, and she’d work the store clerks by engaging them in conversation and getting them to believe a major sale (and its attendant commission) was imminent, and then simply walk out of the store wearing the merchandise. Despite a decades-long career, she had only a few run-ins with police, including one in which she was detained for months by Monegasque authorities who could not find the ring she’d secreted away and couldn’t charge her. She was finally imprisoned in her 80s, but spent less than a year behind bars. This book feels like more of a highlight reel than an actual memoir. She barely touches on her relationships with her children, much less with their father (who mostly raised them). Even her longtime partner, who she never marries, is mostly a thin sketch. At one point about 2/3 of the way through the book she mentions that she’s turning 50 but there’s been no real grounding in her age prior to that so it feels kind if jarring. The writing is competent but mostly unspectacular, though her ghostwriter does a good job of incorporating what is clearly Doris’s own irreverence and wicked sense of humor. But at the end of the book, I didn’t feel like I really had much of a sense of what her life really was and who she really is beneath that disarming exterior. It’s fine, a quick read, but nothing with enough of a hook to really affirmatively recommend.

If real, one might engage in her art!She leaves you wondering where she got the nerve to attempt these these thefts.

I bought this book last year and enjoyed it so much that I purchased additional books for some friends of mine to read. I lent my personal copy out so this will be a replacement book for me. The book is well written, interesting and entertaining. A good conversational piece especially for book clubs. I throughly recommend for those who are tired of reading nonsense.

I enjoy reading nonfiction books and/or memoirs about jewelry, gemstones, jewelry heists, etc. So, deciding to read Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World's Most Notorious Jewel Thief by Doris Payne was a no brainer for me.Prior to reading Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World's Most Notorious Jewel Thief, I'd never heard of Doris Payne before. Ms. Payne definitely lived a colorful life and an unconventional one at that for sure. I enjoyed reading how Doris Payne became a jewelry thief and her travels around the world stealing high end jewelry from the likes of Cartier and other well known high end jewelers.The writing for Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World's Most Notorious Jewel Thief by Doris Payne was mediocre. I think more details could have been added or embellished a bit more in certain areas. But overall, Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World's Most Notorious Jewel Thief by Doris Payne was a worthwhile read.

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From the moment I read the sample of this book I knew I had to buy it and read the entire book. I read this fantastic biography of Doris in one sitting. She is one of the most amazing talented jewel thief’s I have ever read about. I also believe in why she did what she did.The one thing I would love to know is what happened to the man who interviewed her in California who was going to make a movie about her and how this author finally was able to tell her story. I only ask this because of the conflict at the end of the book that was not elaborated on how it came to be.

This story of Doris Payne was very interesting though I had heard of her before reading it. Her younger life was like most children’s younger lives back in her time. Abusive and traumatic in a lot of ways but I still never got a real reason that she was doing what she was doing. She never seemed to really own up to the fact that she was stealing because she called them campaigns. Good story telling though.

I enjoyed the book. As I read more, I realized, I had heard of Doris. There were times I doubted her story. The book began to remind me of a Sidney Sheldon fiction. I admired her determination, but at the same I thought this lady doesn’t know when to fold. All in all a very good read. I’ve recommended it to a few people.

I really liked this book. Seeing how this lady became one of the biggest jewel thieves in the world was super interesting. The things she went through and how she continuously evaded arrest. Even when she was apprehended, it was never for very long and her circumstances weren't the worst. At 80+ years old and serving time, this was just a fascinating read to me. I'm glad she was able to tell her story finally.

Diamond Doris was an extremely enjoyable book. Her attention to her attire and looks, ability to hop on a plane to go to another country with just the benefit of jewelry research was just bad azz. She was so confident and was empowered although she was breaking multiple international laws. She was a very interesting women but her parenting skills left much to the imagination. Fortunately she has her mother and the children’s father. She was a wild woman.

I like this book because the author let you in on her schemas. I also notice the racial issues that occurred and wonder how she got away so long as being noticeably light in color or at times being a woman of color at times easily spotted.It is a good read for a time killer.

I read this in two days, Doris lived a life that was risque & daring. It baffles me how she was able to lure & charm all the different employees at various jewelry stores to show her more jewelry than they should have, and be able to steal right under their eyes. I definitely see Kerry Washington or Halle Berry playing Doris in a movie version of this book. A great read!!

This was a ‘page-turner’ ... w/ each page I read, I wanted to read more!!! I only recently learned of ‘Diamond Doris Payne’! I was intrigued and fascinated by her story! And I was also somewhat saddened by the psychosis that caused her to aspire to be a jewel thief as a ‘career’!!! I watched the Documentary first, but will watch it again w/ a different appreciation! I’d love to see her story adapted into a movie!!!!

This book was so fascinating and the time line was so revealing, it left me spell bound!!!I can only imagine how Doris mustarded up the courage to step into the realm of jewelry “taking”!!This page turning, hell raising, picture-painted stories wasOne hell of a read!! I actually admired Doris tremendously! Her life story is meant for the big screen!!I only wish I could meet her & hear some of this drama first hand☺️!!

Doris Payne’s story is quite intriguing. Similar to many others I too learned of Ms. Payne’s complex life by way of her Atlanta arrest. Instantly I was intrigued by this Southerner and her ability to navigate in such a way. Fast forward to the documentary and now the book. A definite page turner, that left me wanting more intricate details. Despite Doris’s level of education she and Zelda, put together a decent book. A short and easy read that should be appropriately priced around $10.

Can you imagine? A woman sets out, as far back as her youth, to become a jewel thief. This doesn’t exactly fall in the category of dream careers but then Doris Payne is not your typical young woman. She writes about her wild ride in her memoir, written with Zelda Lockhart, DIAMOND DORIS: THE TRUE STORY OF THE WORLD’S MOST NOTORIOUS JEWEL THIEF. Growing up in the segregated south, the tough times of an unpredictable coal-mining town in a broken home with a father who she watched repeatedly abuse her mother, and already feeling the cruelty of racial inequality at a young age, Doris figured out that she wasn’t going to stand for it. But her way to fight back certainly wasn’t ethical.She saw sparkly diamonds and she wanted them. Not small trinkets. We’re talking many carats. Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Bulgari, Garrard & Co. She escaped her small town and started slowly, methodically, hitting the big cities. And, when nearby Cleveland, then Philadelphia, and on to New York City and Los Angeles proved too tired, she found her way to Monte Carlo, Paris, London, Rome, and beyond. Doris looked at fashion magazine ads for inspiration – saw a diamond piece that she had to have, and she grabbed it. Literally.Did Doris ever get caught? You must read the book and find out. With each turn of the page, you might need to pick your jaw up off the floor in wonder how she pulled off each heist. Her nerve, her willingness to risk so much and the fact that this little lady could walk right into the most fashionable stores in the world and take such exquisite pieces right out from under the noses of the jewelers makes her put the Oceans 8 gang to shame. Yet, she had no shame. Still doesn’t.