Confidence by Rafael Frumkin

February 13, 2023

Confidence by Rafael Frumkin

Ezra and Orson are best friends and sometime lovers, both growing up poor, who meet as baby criminals at Last Chance Camp, one stop before juvie. Ezra has his first experience with con games when he's ten, and he and his mother stop at a tent revival meeting, and his mother cons the church goers. He and Orson run their first scam together on a site like Etsy, then get into a bigger con game involving Bitcoin, because most people don't actually understand what it is or how to use it. Their target market is the ultra-rich, "the man," the blood suits (as Orson and Ezra call them), the kind of people who are so rich they have no idea what real life is like and don't bother to closely research the schemes of con men like Orson and Ezra. They are also the kind of people that the rest of us secretly enjoy watching get swindled because they deserve it and they can afford it. What does it matter if they get taken for a little money? But then the boys come up with an idea for a much bigger scam, a (phony) behavior altering device/program that takes off when they market it to the wives of ultra-rich men. They find themselves riding a billion dollar wave until it comes crashing down. Who needs the American Dream, these guys have the American Con.

Pyramid or Ponzi schemes have been around for a long time, as have con artists. Famous con artists include P. T. Barnum, L. Ron Hubbard, and Donald Trump, and Ezra and Orson aspire to join their ranks. The key to a successful con is offering something that is too good to be true, and making it a little obscure so that people don't understand exactly what they are buying. Orson and Ezra are opposites: Ezra is short, nerdy, brilliant, introverted and addicted to the internet; Orson is movie star handsome, charismatic, charming, and a born salesman. Ezra literally has tunnel vision, suffering from glaucoma and progressively poor eyesight, and he has a hard time seeing Orson for who he really is. Greed is always their driving force, but their real problems begin when Orson starts believing the BS that they are selling. 

Mel Brooks made a movie called The Producers, about a Broadway producer who concocts a scheme to produce the worst play ever written and make a killing by over-selling shares to investors (The Twelve Chairs is another Brooks film about con artists). 

Many thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

The Producers

A Beautiful Crime by Christopher Bollen

December 29, 2019

A Beautiful Crime by Christopher Bolen

Nick and Clay, two fledgling con men from New York, concoct a scheme to swindle a retired American expatriate in Venice.  Their plan is simple:  play on the expatriate gazillionaire's obsession with a famous New York family's antiques.  When their first swindle succeeds beautifully, they decide to gamble on an even bigger con.

While the plot was interesting, I found all three of the main characters to be unlikable - the most interesting character in the book was Freddy, who died before the book opens but fortunately appears in a later section.  When I found out that Richard, the expatriate, was one of those super-wealthy Americans who decide that they have to save Venice, I hoped that Nick and Clay would swindle him good (sorry, but if the Italian and Venetian governments don't want to save Venice, it shouldn't be up to a bunch of stupid mega-rich Americans to do it - there are too many causes in our own country that need their help desperately, like wildlife conservation and childhood poverty).  But the plot moves quickly, the writing is quite literary for a thriller, and it's a quick read that will keep the reader interested.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC in return for a review.