Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated a Nation

by Dean Jobb

Harper Avenue, 348 pp., $29.99 Before there was Bernie Madoff, there was Leo Koretz, a master swindler who, in early twentieth-century Chicago, enticed hundreds of people to invest as much as $30 million dollars — and then simply vanished.

Dean Jobb presents the story of Koretz, who was known by his early classmates, associates, and, eventually, by family and friends as someone who could “get blood from a turnip.” A victim of a swindle himself, Koretz parlayed his misfortune into his own scheme, drawing in friends, family, and close associates, including his own rabbi, before it collapsed in 1923.

Jobb traces the thrilling story of deception, following Koretz from Chicago, to New York, to Nova Scotia, where he reinvented himself as a wealthy, bookish man with an eye for the ladies, hosting lavish parties at Pinehurst, a hunting lodge in south-central Nova Scotia. Empire of Deception portrays the details of the Koretz swindle and its human cost — from the nervous breakdown of his wife, Mae, to the feelings of bewilderment and disappointment of Nova Scotians who had enjoyed his hospitality.

Jobb’s book is a thrilling read — a journey through the evasive American dream of easy wealth and its inevitable demise. — Karine Duhamel eighteen months between 1940 and 1941. Author Ernest Robert Zimmerman, a former Lakehead University history professor, grew up in wartime Nazi Germany. His comprehensive book sheds light on a slice of history that brought European prisoners of war and other internees to an isolated Canadian community.

Zimmerman’s thorough research, along with numerous photos of daily life in Camp R, paints a vivid picture of life at the camp and the political context that spawned it. Meant to house “enemy alien” prisoners and internees who had been identified as too dangerous to be kept in Britain’s camps, Camp R was in reality home to a hodgepodge of people who included German refugees (such as Jews and anti- Nazis), Nazis and their sympathizers, German nationals ( some of whom had lived for decades in Britain), and German merchant seamen.