Empire of Deception - The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation

Dean Jobb

Summary

“[A] comprehensively researched and enthralling account of the life, times and crimes of Leo Koretz . . . give[s] a master con artist his due” (The Washington Post).

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—upward of $400 million today—in phantom timberland and nonexistent oil wells in Panama. This rip-roaring tale of greed, financial corruption, dirty politics, over-the-top and under-the-radar deceit, illicit sex, and a brilliant and wildly charming con man on the town, then on the lam, is not only a rich and detailed account of a man and an era; it’s a fascinating look at the methods of swindlers throughout history.

As Model Ts rumbled down Michigan Avenue, gang-war shootings announced Al Capone’s rise to underworld domination. As bedecked partygoers thronged to the Drake Hotel’s opulent banquet rooms, corrupt politicians held court in thriving speakeasies and the frenzy of stock market gambling was rampant. Leo Koretz was the Bernie Madoff of his day, and Dean Jobb shows us that the American dream of easy wealth is a timeless commodity.

“Intoxicating and impressively researched, Jobb’s immorality tale provides a sobering post-Madoff reminder that those who think everything is theirs for the taking are destined to be taken.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A captivating tale of high-flying financial chicanery in 1920s Chicago . . . A thoroughly enjoyable read.” —Gary Krist, New York Times–bestselling author of The Mirage Factory

Available since: 05/19/2015.

Other books that might interest you

Short Story Collection Vol 036

Various

A collection of 20 short works of fiction in the public domain chosen and read by a group of LibriVox members.The story of The Lamplighter (by Charles Dickens) is a special group reading, done by the following LV volunteers during a 2009 Librivox meeting in London, UK: Philippa, Cori Samuel, Alex Foster, Hugh McGuire, Chris Hughes and Gesine.

Show book

The Life & Legacy of Margaret...

Julia Ward Howe

The present volume bears the name of Margaret Fuller simply, because it is by this name that its subject is most widely known and best remembered. Another name, indeed, became hers by marriage; but this later style and title were borne by our friend for a short period only, and in a country remote from her own. It was as Margaret Fuller that she took her place among the leading spirits of her time and made her brave crusade against its unworthier features. The record of her brief days of wifehood and of motherhood is tenderly cherished by her friends, but the story of her life-work is best inscribed with the name which was hers by birth and baptism, the name which, in her keeping, acquired a significance not to be lost nor altered.

Show book

Top Hoodlum - Frank Costello...

Anthony M. DeStefano

The press nicknamed him "The Prime Minister of the Underworld." The U.S. Treasury's Bureau of Narcotics described him as "one of the most powerful and influential Mafia leaders in the U.S." But to friends and associates, he was simply "Uncle Frank." Who was Frank Costello really? That's the question Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Anthony M. DeStefano sets out to answer—in this definitive portrait of one of the most fascinating figures in the annals of American crime . . . 
Using newly released FBI files, eyewitness accounts, and family mementos, Top Hoodlum takes you inside the Mafia that Frank Costello helped build from the ground up, from small-time bootlegging and gambling to a nationwide racketeering empire. 
Sometimes shocking, sometimes amusing, and always riveting, these are the stories that have inspired American crime classics like The Godfather, Casino, Goodfellas, and The Sopranos. This is the man who made the Mafia such a powerful force in our nation's history. This is Top Hoodlum.

Show book

Political Activists -...

Kelly Mass

This audiobook contains the following topics:
1: John Muir was a prominent Scottish-American biologist, author, ecological philosophy, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, and early supporter for the conservation of wilderness in the US of America. He was also called "John of the Mountains" and "Dad of the National Parks." Countless people have read his letters, essays, and books on his exploits in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada.
2: From 1955 till his assassination in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist clergyman and activist who ended up being the most identifiable voice and leader in the American civil liberties movement. King used nonviolence and civil disobedience to advance civil liberties, inspired by his Christian convictions and Mahatma Gandhi's tranquil work.
3: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian attorney, anti-colonial patriot, and political ethicist who used nonviolent resistance to lead the triumphant struggle for India's independence from British rule, motivating civil liberties and liberty movements around the globe.
4: Mother Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu, typically referred to as Saint Teresa of Calcutta in the Catholic Church, was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary. She was born in Skopje (today the capital of North Macedonia), which was then part of the Ottoman Empire's Kosovo Vilayet.
5: The Industrial Revolution was a period of shift in Britain, continental Europe, and the USA from around 1760 till at some point between 1820 and 1840, when new production innovations were introduced.

Show book

Lessons in Disaster - McGeorge...

Gordon M. Goldstein

A revelatory look at the decisions that led to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, drawing on the insights and reassessments of one of the war's architects"I had a part in a great failure. I made mistakes of perception, recommendation and execution. If I have learned anything I should share it."These are not words that Americans ever expected to hear from McGeorge Bundy, the national security adviser to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. But in the last years of his life, Bundy—the only principal architect of Vietnam strategy to have maintained his public silence—decided to revisit the decisions that had led to war and to look anew at the role he played. He enlisted the collaboration of the political scientist Gordon M. Goldstein, and together they explored what happened and what might have been. With Bundy's death in 1996, that manuscript could not be completed, but Goldstein has built on their collaboration in an original and provocative work of presidential history that distills the essential lessons of America's involvement in Vietnam. Drawing on Goldstein's prodigious research as well as the interviews and analysis he conducted with Bundy, Lessons in Disaster is a historical tour de force on the uses and misuses of American power. And in our own era, in the wake of presidential decisions that propelled the United States into another war under dubious pretexts, these lessons offer instructive guidance that we must heed if we are not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Show book

Cold Heart - The Great Unsolved...

Kimberly Tilley

The murder of Ed Burdick is the true story of the great unsolved mystery of turn of the century Buffalo and a terrible wrong that was never put right.1903, Buffalo, New York. Ed Burdick, a wealthy manufacturer known for his kindness and generosity, and his wife Alice had a life few could imagine. The couple had three lovely daughters, a beautiful home, and they were fixtures in the elite Elmwood Avenue set. Despite rumors of trouble in the Burdick marriage, few believed it until Ed ordered his wife out of their home and filed for divorce. The whispers about their separation abruptly ended when Ed Burdick was found murdered in his den while his family slept upstairs. The police found a mosaic of conflicting clues at the crime scene. The investigation uncovered shocking information about the Buffalo tycoon's life, and no shortage of suspects with a motive for murder.

Show book