Same trip to Saratoga, same bookstore, same history section. Lure of a book title with the quaintest street name, Threadneedle, a name that brings back wonderful childhood learning to sew memories, and a subtitle that evokes my reading of JP Morgan's life: The Incredible True Story of the American Forgers Who Nearly Broke the Bank of England. (Not my favorite foreign country, by the way.)
I have to say quite bluntly that if my staff had written this book, I would have yelled at them as that sat around my round table, heads down. It is quite impossible to follow the chronology of the crime, who did what when and how were they caught. I sometimes think the author, Nicholas Booth, by writing so non sequitur purposefully intended to make the crime more nefarious. While the perpetrators had multiple levels of scheming going on and devised many side bar trips and aliases, the reader is befuddled to know if what is being presented is occurring, being given as testimony during the trial or part of Pinkerton's investigation. Nor does it help that the criminals were related, having the same last name, associates having the same first names, and everyone pretending to be each other to cover their tracks. A time line or interlock would help someone get through this crime story.
Like reading J P Morgan, the dollar amounts seem small compared to my last work portfolio's values, but unlike Morgan, the description of notes and floats seems so much more primitive than Wall Street banking. It was a time when image was everything, a sort of Brett/Bart Maverick quality of dressing well shysters and schemers.
The story contains the germs of international monetary fraud on a large scale and traces the early days of private detectives. Nonetheless it is a difficult read and a reader only gets footing and balance after hundreds of pages of false directions.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment