At first I wasn’t sure,  “The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum” didn’t sound like my type of book. I had never heard of this women and certainly had no idea about the talented part.  But the subtitle “The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss”  got me interested.

Then I read the description on Netgalley and it made me give it a try.  It starts like this:

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?

This sounded interesting.  Certainly an unusual and unexpected story. For me, it was made even more interesting because many of my ancestors came through New York City in the mid-to-late 1800s.   But even without that extra genealogy interest, it would be interesting.  I thank Random House and Netgalley for the allowing me to read the book before publication.  It goes on sale July 2.

The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum: The Rise and Fall of an American Organized-Crime Boss by Margalit Fox is a fascinating book. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in true crime or the history of New York.