The Man Who Robbed the Pierre: The Story of Bobby Comfort

The 1972 robbery of Manhattan's Hotel Pierre, the most lucrative heist of its kind, was exceptional only for the size of the loot (some $11 million) and the smooth expertise with which it was executed. New York Times columnist Berkow (Red, Carew uses the event as the hook on which to hang his biography of the man who masterminded it. Bobby Comfort of Rochester, N.Y., evidently never had an instinct that was not criminal, even as a child. Physically lazy and mechanically inept, he avoided regular employment and turned first to card sharping and then to robbery. He spent years in reform schools and prisons, but through his mastery of the law was able to shorten his sentences. He found robbing hotels (and Sophia Loren) a handy way to make money. But, despite Berkow's dramatic writing, this is not a major true-crime saga. Photos not seen by PW. (June 23)