Hawker the Great American Swindler

About this book

New York's spectacle of wealth, invention, and social ambition provides the stage for a confidence artist who appears to occupy two identities at once. A legendary rich woman believes money can command affection and reputation, while secret police struggle to follow a man whose alibis seem supported by unimpeachable witnesses. Letters, disguises, and carefully engineered desires turn fraud into psychological theatre. Nicola Haddad's crime novel is not satisfied with a chase; it studies the greed, vanity, and wishful thinking that make deception possible. Hawker succeeds because his victims help construct the illusion, leaving readers to decide where criminal genius ends and collective self-deception begins.