Entertaining biography of the king of America's golden age of con artistry. Born Jacob Herzig to a respectable Jewish family, his siblings were all over-achievers who went on to respectable careers, but young Jacob was determined not to have work for success. Early run-ins with the law and a 2 year stint in a reformatory only hardened his desire to make a good living from fleecing rubes of their cash. Changing his name to a more WASP-ish George Graham Rice (nicknamed Ricecakes) he set out to con a better class of mark. He had all the necessary skills - a quick brain, silver tongue and the ability to spot a sucker from a mile away. A chance encounter led to his starting a firm that dispensed dodgy race tips to eager rubes, making him millions before the law caught up with him, but he went on to bigger and better things, taking advantage of the minerals boom selling stock in worthless mines on New York's wild and woolly free for all Curb Exchange. A close relationship with arch-fixer Arnold Rothstein meant he was able to evade the law for a long time, but he eventually went down for mail fraud and larceny. He was on the verge of being arrested again when he disappeared just ahead of the law and lived out the rest of his days in hiding. Not an edifying story but an entertaining tale that perfectly catches the feel of America's gilded age and the anything goes atmosphere of New York's financial heart before the Great Crash. Wonderful read. ( )