The Extraordinary Life, Crimes Of Adam Worth

"The Napoleon of Crime" is an irresistibly juicy biography of Adam Worth, a Victorian-era master criminal who apparently served as the model for Sherlock Holmes' arch-nemesis, Professor Moriarty. Worth was a real piece of work, and this book by Ben Macintyre, Paris bureau chief for The Times of London, does him (so to speak) justice.

Worth was a German-born American with an early disdain for the law. As a youth during the Civil War, he made a tidy profit by enlisting, collecting a bonus, then deserting and re-enlisting elsewhere. When wrongly listed as killed in action, he took the opportunity to invent a new identity, gravitating to New York and a life that combined high-class crime with lavish living.

Worth prohibited violence on his jobs, insisting that any man with a brain needed no gun. Thanks to shrewd planning and execution - he specialized in bank robberies - he was soon wealthy. He also attracted the attention of William Pinkerton, son of the man who founded the famous detective agency, and Pinkerton would track Worth for years, always one step behind.

In England, Worth's career really blossomed. He established a network of criminals that carried out villainous deeds across the continent. He also met the two loves of his life, one being Kitty Flynn, a fetching Irishwoman. Worth entered into a menage a trois with her and his partner, Piano Charlie Bullard, which lasted until Kitty broke both their hearts by marrying a South American millionaire.

His other great love was a painting: Thomas Gainsborough's portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Worth stole it as a bargaining chip to negotiate the release of his hapless criminal brother, who was released anyway. Worth kept the Gainsborough as a surrogate for his lost Kitty and traveled with it everywhere, keeping it rolled in the false bottom of a trunk.

Toward the end of his life, ill and broke and estranged from the family he had begun, Worth contacted his old nemesis Pinkerton to arrange the sale of the Gainsborough. The two men formed a friendship that lasted until Worth's death in 1902.

"The Napoleon of Crime" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $24) is well-researched and excitingly told. Perhaps Macintyre overused Pinkerton's memoirs, which may be unreliably purple. And a recent New Yorker article doubted whether Worth was truly a model for Moriarty.

In the end, though, only a pedant would quibble. "The Napoleon of Crime" is a fascinating story about an extraordinary man.

Less tantalizing but still worthwhile is "Allan Pinkerton" (Wiley, $27.95), about the man who founded the Pinkerton Agency and the father of Adam Worth's longtime enemy.

Author James Mackay is, like his subject, a Scotsman and also the author of several other biographies, including Robert Burns and Michael Collins. "Allan Pinkerton" is impeccably scholarly; unfortunately, Mackay's dry style sometimes makes for slow going.

Still, it's an interesting tale. Pinkerton came to America in 1842 as a young cooper, but had a natural ability for deduction and detection. Within a few years he was tracking down rascals full time.

He was a Chicago police detective before founding his own pioneering agency, and during the Civil War, Pinkerton served as Lincoln's chief spy. He was instrumental in helping escaped slaves, yet he also hired out to mine owners in their battle against labor unions, especially those Irish-American strong-arm tacticians known as the Molly Maguires.

After Pinkerton's death in 1884, his sons expanded the business greatly, and it still operates today under its classic symbol, the unblinking eye.

Seattle writer Adam Woog's column on crime and mystery fiction appears in The Seattle Times the second Sunday of each month.