Confident Women: Swindlers, Grifters, and Shapeshifters of the Feminine Persuasion

by Tori Telfer

Overview

The true crime author of Lady Killers presents a roundup of history’s most notorious female con artists and their bold, outrageous scams.

From Elizabeth Holmes and Anna Delvey to Frank Abagnale and Charles Ponzi, audacious scams and charismatic scammers continue to intrigue us. As Tori Telfer reveals in Confident Women, the art of the con has a long and venerable tradition, and its female practitioners are some of the best—or worst.

In 18th century Paris, Jeanne de Saint-Rémy scammed the royal jewelers out of a priceless diamond necklace by pretending to be best friends with Queen Marie Antoinette. In 19th century Rochester, NY, Kate and Maggie Fox accidentally started a religious movement by pretending they could speak to spirits. In the 20th century, a woman named Margaret Lydia Burton embezzled money all over the country—and stole upwards of forty prized show dogs. A few decades later, a teenager named Roxie Ann Rice scammed the entire NFL.

Confident Women investigates how these and other notorious women were able to so spectacularly dupe and swindle their victims . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062956040
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/19/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	351
Sales rank:	240,186
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Tori Telfer is the author of Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History and the host of the podcasts Criminal Broads, Why Women Kill: Truth, Lies, and Labels (CBS All Access), and Red Flags (Investigation Discovery). She lives in New York City with her husband and son.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Charming xi

The Glitterati 1

Jeanne de Saint-Rémy 3

Cassie Chadwick 25

Wang Ti 47

The Seers 65

The Spiritualists 67

Fu Futtam 89

Rose Marks 107

The Fabulists 129

The Anastasias 131

Roxie Ann Rice 151

The Tragediennes 171

Bonny Lee Bakley 195

The Drifters 215

Lauretta J. Williams 217

Margaret Lydia Burton 237

Sante Kimes 255

Conclusion: Confident 287

Acknowledgments 289

Notes 293

Editorial Reviews

12/07/2020

In this compulsively readable account, Telfer (Lady Killers) delivers a darkly humorous tale of some of the most outrageous con women who ever scammed the public. Her subjects range from Jeanne de Saint-Rémy, who engineered a scheme in 18th-century France involving a cardinal, a diamond necklace, and Marie Antoinette that led to a scandal and contributed to the fall of the French monarchy, to Bonny Lee Bakley, who ran a mail-order porn scam, conned actor Robert Blake into marrying her—and wound up murdered for it in 2001. In the early part of the 20th century, there were hundreds of fake Anastasias, purporting to be the Russian princess, who bilked believers out of money, apartments, cars, and furs. More recently, Telfer writes, fake spiritualists and mediums have swindled the American public out of $2.1 billion a year, among them Rose Marks, who gave spiritual advice to romance novelist Jude Deveraux to the tune of $17 million from 1991 to 2008. Then there’s Alicia Head, who had a horrifying story of surviving 9/11 that made her famous and the leader of a survivor network. It wasn’t until 2007 that the New York Times outed Head as a fake who wasn’t even in the country on 9/11. Assured prose complements the vivid portraits. True crime fans are in for a treat. Agent: Erin Hosier, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"Whether she's describing women pretending to be doctors, socialites, or just another nice lady who desperately needed help, Telfer dishes up their scandalous schemes for true-crime fans to relish." — Booklist

"Readers who appreciate a well-executed sting will enjoy this thoroughly researched yet breezy guide to notorious women." — Library Journal

"Grifters! Fake Heiresses! Phony Royalty! Imposter Chinese Princelings! Faux Ghostbusters and More! The brilliantly crazy conniving women in CONFIDENT WOMEN have a helluva lot of nerve—and I love it!"

— Marisa Acocella, New York Times best selling author of Cancer Vixen, Ann Tenna and The Big She-Bang: The Herstory of the Universe According to God the Mother

From the Publisher

"Grifters! Fake Heiresses! Phony Royalty! Imposter Chinese Princelings! Faux Ghostbusters and More! The brilliantly crazy conniving women in CONFIDENT WOMEN have a helluva lot of nerve—and I love it!"

Marisa Acocella

"Whether she's describing women pretending to be doctors, socialites, or just another nice lady who desperately needed help, Telfer dishes up their scandalous schemes for true-crime fans to relish."

Booklist

"Whether she's describing women pretending to be doctors, socialites, or just another nice lady who desperately needed help, Telfer dishes up their scandalous schemes for true-crime fans to relish."

Booklist

12/01/2020

Keep your hand firmly on your wallet as Telfer (Lady Killers) takes you from the court of Marie Antoinette to Harlem's occult scene to the aftermath of 9/11. She shines a spotlight on infamous grifters, adventuresses, imposters, and femmes fatales—each exhibiting brazen confidence and the uncanny ability to sell an outlandish story. Her rogues gallery is divided into four con artist categories—the Glitterati, the Seers, the Fabulists, and the Drifters—with memorable examples highlighting each section. Telfer can coherently summarize an intentionally convoluted scheme, such as a real estate swindle targeting China's elite, while acknowledging the human cost. She also embraces the morbid humor of situations such as Roxie Ann Rice performing a trick play on the NFL with information gleaned from an issue of Ebony. Then there's the outright tragic, including those who profit from disasters or the ill-fated Bonny Lee Bakley, who desperately wanted to marry a Hollywood star. VERDICT Readers who appreciate a well-executed sting will enjoy this thoroughly researched yet breezy guide to notorious women.—Terry Bosky, Madison, WI

Library Journal