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    Stealing Sisi's Star: How a Master Thief Nearly Got Away with Austria's Most Famous Jewel

    Stealing Sisi's Star: How a Master Thief Nearly Got Away with Austria's Most Famous Jewel

    by Jennifer Bowers Bahney

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    Customer Reviews

    Jennifer Bowers Bahney is an award-winning journalist with an MSJ from Northwestern University and a BA from Smith College. Her first book for McFarland, Stealing Sisi’s Star, was a finalist for the 2016 Ohioana Book Award in Nonfiction.

    Table of Contents

    Table of Contents

    Acknowledgments  vi
    Preface  1
    A Note on Currency  5
    Prologue  7
    I. “I am on show like a freak in a circus.”  11
    II. “It’s just a natural thing.”  33
    III. “I didn’t know anything about Sisi.”  41
    IV. “I am a slave to my hair.”  51
    V. “No one else had one but me.”  60
    VI. “She worshipped her beauty like a heathen his idols.”  64
    VII. “Who has stolen Sisi’s Star?”  88
    VIII. “I cannot conceive how anyone can love a number of people.”  94
    IX. “The diamonds and rubies … sparkle like fire.”  107
    X. “It’s only priceless if you have to have it.”  114
    XI. “The file started to get even more interesting.”  127
    XII. “Thoughts of death encircle her incessantly now.”  140
    XIII. “I gave the diamond back voluntarily.”  149
    XIV. “I wished for my soul to escape to heaven through a tiny hole in my heart.”  162
    XV. “You continue to take pride in your criminal past.”  168
    Epilogue  179
    Chapter Notes  187
    Bibliography  193
    Index  199

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    While on honeymoon in Vienna in June of 1998, at the height of the tourist season, Gerald Daniel Blanchard, an accomplished thief, happened upon the greatest challenge of his life when he spotted the last remaining “Sisi Star” on display in Schönbrunn Palace. Named after its former owner, the Empress Elisabeth, the ten-pointed diamond and pearl star was originally one of 27 that the enigmatic Sisi wore in her extravagantly long hair. Despite the multi-layered security system protecting the priceless jewel, Blanchard decided then and there to steal it. The star remained missing for nine years until a team of Canadian police investigators launched a joint task force to bring down a criminal organization that had robbed banks, stores and ordinary citizens on several continents. When their chief suspect offered to reveal the whereabouts of the Sisi Star, the investigators realized they were dealing with no ordinary thief. But no one involved in the case fully understood the history of the star, its ties to obsession, suicide and assassination.

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    From the Publisher
    It would be criminal for lovers of historical nonfiction to miss this story of theft, sadness, and obsession...provides a fascinating peek at 19th-century thinking”—Kirkus Reviews; “the true story of a ten-pointed diamond and pearl star that entwines theft, obsession, suicide, and assassination”—Ohioana Library Association.
    Kirkus Reviews
    2015-08-31
    Bahney (Longhairlovers: Healthy Hair Secrets Revealed, 2nd Ed., 2014, etc.) dissects the real-life theft of a spectacular jewel and the life of an Austrian empress. The hair of Empress Elisabeth of Austria—known as "Sisi" (pronounced "Sissy")—wasn't quite as long as Rapunzel's, but it did nearly reach to the floor and took an entire day to clean. As befitted a coiffure of that length and thickness, Sisi would occasionally adorn it with an accessory mounted with about 30 diamonds of various sizes and one large pearl. The result was a spectacular "glittering halo" effect that made her a sensation. (One element of the piece, the Kochert Diamond Pearl, was housed in Vienna's Schönbrunn Palace museum until it was stolen in 1998.) Famous in her prime as one of the most beautiful women in the world, Sisi and her spectacular hair stars were immortalized in a painting that became popular in Europe. Bahney details her tragic life, telling of her sadness at being in the royal Austrian court, her apparent eating disorders, and her fanatical exercising so that she could maintain her "wasp waist." The book also covers Gerald Blanchard, the master thief who stole the Kochert Diamond Pearl, and Bahney tells his story as fully as she does Sisi's. The book provides a fascinating peek at 19th-century thinking, such as the widespread belief that if a pregnant woman looked at animals too long, her baby would likely be born looking like one. Bahney, a journalist, populates the book with engaging supporting characters, such as Sisi's domineering mother-in-law, Archduchess Sophie, and her beleaguered husband, Emperor Franz Joseph. Ultimately, however, this is a book about robbery: both of a jewel and of a lonely young woman's life. It would be criminal for lovers of historical nonfiction to miss this story of theft, sadness, and obsession.

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