Empire of deception : the incredible story of a master swindler who seduced a city and captivated the nation
(2015)

Nonfiction

Book

Call Numbers:
364.163/KORETZ,L

Availability

Locations Call Number Status
Adult Nonfiction 364.163/KORETZ,L Available

Details

PUBLISHED
Chapel Hill, North Carolina : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, [2015]
EDITION
First edition
DESCRIPTION

x, 336 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

ISBN/ISSN
9781616201753 (hbk.), 1616201754 (hbk.)
LANGUAGE
English
NOTES

Our Ponzi -- Ambitions -- The law -- The gamble -- The dupe -- The big idea -- The syndicate -- The hanging judge -- The sting -- The confidence man -- The crime fighter -- The bubble -- The flight -- The smash -- The sensation -- The double life -- The victims -- The manhunt -- The alias -- The guide -- The hideaway -- The prince of entertainers -- The crime of the century -- The pariah -- The womanizer -- The trap -- The gang war -- The prisoner -- The return -- The confession -- The reckoning -- The final swindle

"It was a time of unregulated madness. And nowhere was it madder than in Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties ... Enter a slick, smooth-talking, charismatic lawyer named Leo Koretz, who enticed hundreds of people ... to invest as much as $30 million--upwards of $400 million today--in phantom timberland and nonexistent oil wells in Panama ... When Leo's scheme finally collapsed in 1923, he vanished, and the Chicago state's attorney, a man whose lust for power equaled Leo's own lust for money, began an international manhunt that lasted almost a year"--Provided by publisher