Customer Reviews

Drake's Fortune: The Fabulous True Story of the World's Greatest Confidence Artist

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The story of the Drake Estate swindle is legendary around Sioux City and this book purports to tell the story of it. The author says he did lots of research but he carefully declines to give authority for what he says in the book and it is really frustrating since it is clear that at times he exaggerates or is slipshoddy with the story. He tries to make the fantastic story of this gross swindle which led so many dupes to part with their money read like a novel, whereas he would have been far better advised to footnote his assertions and cite where his authority is. He apparently unearthed the trial transcript and why he doesn't tell us where it can be checked I do not know, since he just skims the trial rather than explaining it. The lawyer for Hartzell, Carlos Goltz, is a legend in these parts and still invokes comment, tho he has been dead over 50 years. His role in the trial is not well told. I thought it odd for the author to tell how he himself was a crook at one time and that this led him to be interested in Hartzell. One need not be a crook to be interested in this amazing story and I only wish it were better and more carefully told. I really enjoyed reading the account, but it could have a so much better book. To get a flavor for the trial read the opinion, Hartzell v. U.S., 72 F.2d 569 (CCA 8, 1934). It will make you want to read this book, even tho the book is not as well-composed as it should be.

This lovely book succeeds for a number of reasons, which I'll gladly explain as follows: Firstly, not just the relationship of character to plot-- which in my opinion is the key ingredient of any successful nonfiction-- but the evolution of the character as the plot; in the case of "Drake's Fortune," the evolution of Oscar Hartzell, madly and finally, into Sir Francis Drake, the Baron of Buckland. The book twists and turns perfectly with Hartzell's deceptions and permutations. Richard Rayner takes us deep inside Hartzell's head in a way rivalled only by Don Delillo's "Libra" and its tortured and confused Oswald. Secondly, Rayner's explanatory digressions-- the history of the con, the history of the 1930s, the psychology of con artists, as well as his own fascinating family and personal (and criminal) history-- are inserted to maximum effect and pacing. It's just a great read. Thirdly, Rayner breaks new and important historiographical ground. Thanks to his work, the Drake Estate and its "donators" will have to be examined by historians of the Depression midwest as a mass social and quasi-religious social movement. This is a great find, and one for which historians should thank Rayner. Like Simon Winchester's "Professor and the Madman," "Drake's Fortune" is based on records found largely in archives-- American and British. These valuable repositories-- the US National Archives and the (UK)Public Records Office-- are, as Rayner notes, where the stories are. They are indeed, and aspiring writers of all stripes-- historians, journalists, screenwriters, and novelists-- should scramble to these facilities posthaste. And finally, this book succeeds because it falls within the tradition of the "New Yorker" magazine's style of seemingly effortless and fine nonfiction writing. A pleasure to read.

The story is clear from the synopsis and other reviews. I'll add that the book is a great read. He's a fine writer, right from the first couple pages you want to keep going. I class this as escapist, interesting, historical, offbeat entertainment. As another reviewer noted, there is relatively little on the "law" of the trial, which is a fairly famous case still occasionally cited (e.g. could he commit fraud by mail from England and be tried in a US court, where the letter arrived?) But that's of little interest except to an attorney, who can look up the case as a supplement to the book. Good reading, and a good offbeat gift book in the nonfiction category. Reyner also wrote two books on California, one light fiction (LA w/o a map) and one on railroad barons & swindles in California history (2008, The Associates).

This was an interesting and amusing yarn about one of the great cons perpetrated in America. The author obviously researched this con and others well. However, I found the book to be a bit thin. If there was not more to flesh out the primary tale - and I doubt there were since the author clearly had read everything ever written on it - then I wish Mr. Raynor had included more about the other cons he had researched. Often he went to interviews of other confidence men to substantiate a point. He easily could have added their tales to show just why the Drake Fortune con was so outrageous.

All in all though, worth the read.