Hunting The Red Fox

Roger Mace

Amateur golf historian and aspiring writer Roger Mace is a good golfer with a great idea: to document stories of ordinary people who have done extraordinary things for the book project he thinks will put him on the map. When he overhears a lunch conversation at the Golden Horseshoe Golf Club in Williamsburg, Virginia, Roger is intrigued: it seems one member of the conversation spent time in the Fifties playing what would later become the PGA Tour. With his curiosity piqued, Roger sets out to acquire his first interview with the man who turns out to be the enigmatic Perry Barnes.

Perry Barnes

And so begins story of Perry Barnes, a highly intelligent, devastatingly charming, and uber-talented man who made a bad teenage mistake in the weeks leading up to his high school graduation in 1942. On a lark, it seems Perry “borrowed” some jewelry that wasn’t technically his. The local judge took it personally and gave Perry the choice of an assignment to a newly formed Army special operations unit at the start of World War II or a 15-year jail stint. As a result, Perry finds himself being trained by the United States government in the skills and arts of sabotage, killing, self-preservation, espionage and ultimately, how to be a world class jewel thief.

Movies, Golf & Jewels

In a story that unfolds in a series of interviews Roger conducts—again, with a healthy dose of skepticism—Perry finds himself in the movie business in the Hollywood of the 1950s, then uses his immense physical skills in pursuit of excellence as a journeyman golfer on the PGA tour of that era with the likes of Ben Hogan, Jimmy Demaret and Arnold Palmer. But before the adventure is over, Perry has stolen the priceless Mecklenburg Diamond from a known jewel thief, with the intention of returning it to the authorities for, of all things, love.