Customer Reviews

Fakes and Forgeries: The True Crime Stories of History's Greatest Deceptions: The Criminals, the Scams, and the Victims

5 star:		(1)
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The book is very well researched with lots of pictures, clear explanations and covers a lot of topics, my problem was that I was interested in painting forgeries and there are very little of this here. If your interest is forgeries and scams in general this is a good thing.

Overall this is an awesome book, it gives a brief history of the worlds most famous forgeries and fakes, from Art, money, and documents to religious and medical works, made by some very interesting and crafty people. I highly recommend this book, however if you are interested in one particular subject you may not like that its really brief on each subject, or if you are looking into a new line of work, this book doesn't exactly give you a "how to" on making your own money sorry, even still this book is a very interesting read.

Although this volume carries a 2005 publication date, while reading it I kept thinking that the text smacked of a writing style much older than that. I have a high interest in the subject matter, but to me, the prose was dull, the photos not all that helpful, and the organization of it confusing. One problem may be that it tries to cover too many topics: currency, art, documents, prehistoric objects, identity theft, con men and women, phony science and fraud to bolster beliefs. Each subject is worthy of an entire book. I also thought, when I began, that the writer seemed to be aiming at a young audience, but I changed my mind as the text wore on. Perhaps I am just not in sync with the intentions of Reader's Digest in producing this particular overview of these crimes and criminals. Often, to my mind, the author spends too many paragraphs on a dull story, and too few on a more interesting forgery or fake. There are better books out there which cover nearly the same territory. I read one only a year or so ago. If you can find a used copy of this for under ten bucks, you won't feel cheated, but this one alone will not satisfy your appetite for this topic, either.