King Con: The Bizarre Adventures of the Jazz Age's Greatest Impostor

by Paul Willetts Narrated by Ray Porter

Overview

The spellbinding tale of hustler Edgar Laplante-the king of Jazz Age con artists-who becomes the victim of his own dangerous game.
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Edgar Laplante was a smalltime grifter, an erstwhile vaudeville performer, and an unabashed charmer. But after years of playing thankless gigs and traveling with medicine shows, he decided to undertake the most demanding and bravura performance of his life. In the fall of 1917, Laplante reinvented himself as Chief White Elk: war hero, sports star, civil rights campaigner, Cherokee nation leader-and total fraud.
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Under the pretenses of raising money for struggling Native American reservations, Laplante dressed in buckskins and a feathered headdress and*traveled throughout the American West, narrowly escaping exposure and arrest each time he left town. When the heat became too much, he embarked upon a lucrative continent-hopping tour that attracted even more enormous crowds, his cons growing in proportion to the adulation of his audience. As he moved through Europe, he spied his biggest mark on the Riviera: a prodigiously rich Hungarian countess, who was instantly smitten with the con man. The countess bankrolled a lavish trip through Italy that made Laplante a darling of the Mussolini regime and a worldwide celebrity, soaring to unimaginable heights on the wings of his lies. But then, at the pinnacle of his improbable success, Laplante's overreaching threatened to destroy him...
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In*King Con, Paul Willetts brings*this previously untold story to life in all its surprising absurdity, showing us how our tremendous capacity for belief and our longstanding obsession with celebrity can make fools of us all-and proving that sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

06/04/2018
In this extensively detailed biography, Willetts (Rendezvous at the Russian Tea Rooms) traces the brazen and bizarre life of Edgar Laplante, an early 20th century drifter and conman extraordinaire. Laplante came of age as a traveling vaudeville performer who was at first content to capitalize on small-scale schemes impersonating celebrities while collecting speaking fees in small-town venues. Over time, he became bold enough to make up identities of his own, the most famous being American Indian “Chief White Elk.” Adorned in a feathered headdress, he addressed spellbound crowds as he spoke of the plight of “his” embittered Native people—all the while profiting off the ticket sales of those who paid to see him speak. Later, Laplante fell into the good graces of two Austrian countesses whose “heaven-sent gullibility” allowed him to leech off their vast wealth and reach the pinnacle of his hustler life, soliciting hefty loans from the family while staying in Europe’s fanciest hotels. Willetts’s biography occasionally gets bogged down by detail—a passage about Laplante’s short-term residence at the Montana Soldier’s Home leads to a long tangent about his education at the Sockanosset School for Boys 17 year earlier—but he keeps the narrative alive with the colorful anecdotes from Laplante’s remarkable life. (Aug.)

From the Publisher

This Jazz Age impostor’s life makes for quite the story, and in King Con, Paul Willetts knows just how to tell it.”
—Michael Dirda, Washington Post

“A real story about an absurd, fascistic fraud. (Can’t think why that resonated.)”
—Sam Jordison, The Guardian

“Willetts’s usual blend of deep research and lively storytelling sucks you straight into this picaresque tale of the conman Edgar Laplante, or Chief White Elk as the shameless would-be Native American styled himself while swindling his way across the USA in the Jazz Age. With every twist the story of Laplante’s life grows harder to believe but, unlike the tall tales he told his credulous victims, it is all true.”
—Kieron Pim, Spectator USA, Books of the Year 2018

“A vivid biography of Edgar Laplante… [whose] story, particularly as told by Willetts, is fascinating for a number of reasons—some universal, some unique."—The Times Literary Supplement

“An amazing book…Paul Willetts has crafted an entertaining and often astounding story of an incredible confidence man…It’s hard to put down.”—The Providence Journal

“King Con is as engaging, ambitious, and colorful as its shady protagonist… Willetts has dug deep into newspaper archives and investigative files to accomplish what the authorities on two continents failed to do almost a century ago—unravel Laplante’s trail of brazen fraud and deceit.”
—Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

“In King Con, Paul Willetts tells the intricate story of  Laplante’s misadventures and complicated swindles, drawing an expert portrait of both the time period and the man. It’s a useful reminder that America has always belonged to the con artist.”
—CrimeReads

“The 1920s was a decade of swindles—and one con artist out tricked them all… this is a story about unscrupulous deception told with a scrupulosity that is admirable.”
—The New Statesman

“A minutely detailed study of a man who is enjoyable to read about, but whom no one with a full complement of senses would ever wish to encounter… The author pins down his egregious subject with crisp objectivity.”
—Jonathan Meades, Country Life

“A fast-moving tale of aninveterate scammer, which is every bit as gripping as fiction.”
—Saga Magazine

“Willetts’s research is impeccable. He also writes clean, fluid prose and his descriptions of Paris, Milan, Naples and Florence in the 1920s are superb.”
—Winnipeg Free Press

“Even if you are not a fan of biographies, you must read this one, as it is astounding the scams Mr Laplante got up to! A fascinating read.”
—Crimesquad.com

“In this extensively detailed biography, Willetts traces the brazen and bizarre life of Edgar Laplante, an early 20th century drifter and conman extraordinaire… he keeps the narrative alive with the colorful anecdotes from Laplante’s remarkable life.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Willetts weaves a fast-paced, intriguing tale. With the rise of identity theft, celebrity worship, and manipulative social media, this sprightly story of a legendary con artist's outrageous successes becomes a cautionary tale for the digital age.”
—Kirkus Reviews 

“Willetts describes the incredible exploits of Edgar Laplante in wonderful detail using a fun, novelistic style."
—Can't Make This Up History Podcast

“Paul Willetts's King Con takes readers on a rollicking ride—a tale of false celebrity and ingenious cons by an inventive Jazz Age grifter that resonate‎ across the decades to this particular moment in America with an unsettling relevance. Readers will be amused, entranced, and, I'm certain, left shaken.” 
—Howard Blum, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Goodnight and In the Enemy's House

“Amazing, absorbing and phenomenally well-researched, King Con is a compelling story that proves truth is far, far stranger than fiction: a picture of an America so naïve and gullible it’s hard to imagine. Not a page is turned without the reader learning something that astonishes and enthralls.”
—Paul French, New York Times bestselling author of Midnight in Peking

“Paul Willets’s King Con is one hell of a rollicking good read. A fabulous tale of one of the all-time great con artists, pulled off with great verve and style. A Jazz Age classic!”  
—Alex Kershaw, New York Times bestselling author of Avenue of Spies and The Liberator

“King Con is a riveting account of a Jazz Age grifter whose grandiose ruse of a life can only be described as fascinatingly ludicrous! A mesmerizing and enjoyable read.”
—Suzanne Rindell, author of The Other Typist and Eagle & Crane

"A terrific subject, crying out to be turned into a film, and the author has made the most of it in this gripping and well-researched book.”
—Andrew Lownie, author of Stalin’s Englishman

“You might justifiably pick up King Con to travel back in time to the ultra-charming Jazz Age, but long after you’ve been pulled into the vortex of this riveting and deliciously strange tale, what will stick with you is the sheer, astonishing audacity of Edgar Laplante’s all-consuming, decade-plus-long grift. An uproarious read.”
—Dave Howard, author of Chasing Phil and Lost Rights

“A story so bizarre—and so compulsively told—that my jaw remained anchored to the floor throughout.”
—John Preston, author of A Very English Scandal

“Think Charles Ponzi was slick? Edgar Laplante, a.k.a. Chief White Elk, was an imposter extraordinaire who hoodwinked audiences and newspaper readers across America and Europe. Paul Willetts spins the rollicking tale of this audacious con man with wit, razor-sharp insight and dazzling storytelling. Hang on for a wild ride.”
—Dean Jobb, author of Empire of Deception

"Anyone who thinks celebrity culture is a new phenomenon should read King Con. Drawing on a vast range of sources, Willetts has pieced together a rich and bizarre Jazz Age story of the century's most shameless confidence trickster… The cons are astounding but the escapes are even more outrageous. Whether he's peddling postcards or hoodwinking royalty, Laplante remains a fascinating figure. A brilliant feat of research is turned into a racing read."
—Christopher Fowler, author of the Bryant & May crime novels

"Willetts has a real gift for writing about compelling but repellant characters and making you care about what happens to them. King Con is about another of these fascinating monsters."
—Catherine Arnold, author of Necropolis: London and Its Dead

Kirkus Reviews

2018-06-18
The absorbing tale of a Jazz Age grifter named Edgar Laplante, who posed as an American Indian and gained extravagant wealth and worldwide fame.Chronicling the life and entertaining yet fraudulent times of Laplante, aka Chief White Elk, Willetts (Rendezvous at the Russian Tea Rooms: The Spyhunter, the Fashion Designer, and the Man from Moscow, 2015, etc.), in his American debut, brings fresh significance to the ancient profession of the con artist. A vaudeville performer who began his career in traveling medicine shows, by 1917 Laplante was a small-time grifter moving from city to city, posing as Onondagan marathon runner Tom Longboat. As his confidence developed, his game grew, and he effectively dazzled his marks and bled them until his cover was blown. With the law always one step behind, he finally settled into his boldest reinvention: Chief White Elk, revered leader of the Cherokee nation, wounded war veteran, sports celebrity, vaudeville performer, war bonds promoter, etc. Dressed in buckskins and headdress, Laplante was the mainstay of local society pages, and his herculean feats of charisma and charm became unparalleled as his cons grew bigger and more dangerous. After several years, having run the course of his scam in North America, he made his way to Europe, where he began hosting fundraisers for American Indian orphans. By 1924, he was living in the French Riviera, where he met a wealthy Austrian countess from whom he bilked massive sums of money. Touring through Italy at her expense, Laplante hit his ultimate stride when he fell into the graces of the Mussolini regime, which brought him renown across Europe and around the globe. Then, just as he reached his career pinnacle, his fabrications crumbled, resulting in a stint in an Italian prison. Using the "surprisingly extensive paper trail" that Laplante "left behind," Willetts weaves a fast-paced, intriguing tale.With the rise of identity theft, celebrity worship, and manipulative social media, this sprightly story of a legendary con artist's outrageous successes becomes a cautionary tale for the digital age.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169119589
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	08/07/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	1,078,901

Read an Excerpt

1

The waiting was almost over. Within the next few minutes, Tom Longboat, an Onondagan marathon runner who had just stopped off in San Jose, California, would be entering the pulpit of the First Baptist Church. Now twenty-eight years old, Tom was way past the age when newspapers carried stories about him winning race after race and twice competing on Canada’s Olympic team, but he remained famous enough for his presence in town to spark excited chatter. That evening--Sunday, March 4, 1917--several hundred people filled the pews. Speaking to them from the pulpit of this balconied modern church was its resident preacher, the Reverend James W. Kramer, who had a reputation for staging services “better than a movie show.”

Broad-shouldered and as fidgety as a marionette midperformance, Kramer had a large, bulging-browed face, its youthful smoothness extending to his prematurely bald crown. In deep, sonorous tones, he said, “I’m sorry the world has still got to be watched. There is something the matter with the world. It wants a religion that not only says, ‘This is the way,’ but walks in that way.” He was nearing the end of that evening’s sermon. “You need religion,” he assured the congregation. “And don’t forget that genuine religion works!” He went on to announce the imminent unveiling and illumination of a newly commissioned ecclesiastical painting, which he described as a masterpiece. “During the illumination, our friend Tom Longboat will sing . . .” Kramer meant to say that Tom would be performing the well-known hymn “Just as I Am, Without One Plea,” only he muddled his words and said, “Just as I Am, Without One Flea.”

Laughter from his audience compounded Kramer’s embarrassment. Distraction was, luckily for him, on hand. The lights were shut off, ready for the painting to be unveiled and then spotlit.

Here was the cue for the boyishly handsome Tom to take center stage. The much-talked-about wound he’d incurred while serving with the Canadian medical corps in France--heart of the war America had not thus far joined--didn’t prevent him from carrying himself with nonchalant grace, his physique still lean and muscular. Just shy of six feet, “the big Indian,” as Kramer referred to him, was tall by the standards of the period. Tom had high cheekbones, olive skin, and full lips that often flexed into a captivating smile, his intelligence and gentle authority projected by soulful brown eyes. He wore his thick, jet-black hair in a neatly parted, collar-length style. From the lapel of his dark suit, he liked to display a Red Cross pin.

When Tom launched into the opening hymn, the Baptist Harmonic Orchestra provided the ponderous musical accompaniment. “Just as I am, without one plea / But that Thy blood was shed for me,” Tom sang in a mellow yet powerful voice, its crisp phrasing accentuating the vocal similarity between him and the hugely popular tenor Chauncey Olcott.

Afterward Tom addressed the congregation, which included numerous latecomers, standing at the sides because all the seats were taken. He was a natural in front of an audience. “This is the first time that I have ever stepped into a first-class Baptist church with a first-class Baptist spirit,” he said, his speech no less rich and melodic than his singing. Relaxed, engaging, and genially self-assured, he spoke of breaking the record for the marathon and receiving trophies from the kings of England and Greece. It was clear why Kramer had awarded him such a fulsome endorsement on the ads promoting that evening’s service. “I never heard a greater man singer than this Indian,” the preacher had declared. “Hear his story of the war and hear him sing. Yes, he is a Christian man. He will move and thrill you.”

Tom proudly informed the congregation that he was a graduate of Carlisle. Just that one word was sufficient to identify Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the celebrated Pennsylvania boarding school where Native American youngsters--many of them unwillingly uprooted from their families and culture--received a classical as well as vocational education. Tom served as a living advertisement for that institution and dozens of other such eastern boarding schools to which generations of Native Americans had been sent. As a mark of his assimilation, Tom said he’d completed a three-year medical course in Chicago. He also revealed that he’d traveled around the world, learning several languages in the process. And he delivered a brief but engrossing account of his work with the medical corps on the muddy battlefields of France.

His description carried the distinctive imprint of firsthand experience. There were none of the allusions to glory and patriotism deployed by people who had never set foot in the trenches. For him, the horrors of the current war “could not be exaggerated.”

“The thing to do,” he suggested, “is to take the sovereigns of the different countries, place them in a pit, charge admission, and let the sovereigns fight.”

Energetic applause greeted this suggestion.

An incredulous young girl, who was impressed by Tom’s performance, dragged her mother up to the pulpit for a closer look at him. Tom suspected racial prejudice lay behind the girl’s disbelief. “Why, he looks just like a man,” her mother said. Tom would later joke about how the girl’s mother must have wondered where his war paint and feathered headdress had gone.

Sharing the bewilderment of both mother and daughter was another member of the congregation--a local real estate agent named Charles Millar. Like so many people there, he’d been drawn to the service by the gravitational pull of Tom’s fame. Millar was doubly curious because he’d raced against Tom in Montreal close on a decade earlier. But Millar didn’t recognize the man in the pulpit, who looked nothing like the marathon runner he’d trailed behind. The Tom Longboat he knew had even darker skin. And he was a tad shorter. Millar couldn’t figure out why the man in the pulpit wanted to go around pretending to be Longboat. Whatever the reason, Millar made up his mind to expose him as an impostor at the end of the service.

The man calling himself Tom Longboat continued to soak up the applause. It was soon replaced by the sound of the church orchestra playing several more hymns. These were followed by a singing duet, a series of baptism ceremonies, and the closing hymn. Dr. Kramer made a few announcements before the large congregation began to disperse.

Millar could now unmask the impostor in front of everyone. But, almost as if the man was being protected by an Onondagan guardian spirit, Millar suffered a last-minute loss of nerve. Instead of facing a torrent of angry questions, Edgar Laplante--the impostor exploiting Tom Longboat’s name and celebrity--was free to collect a large appearance fee.

While puttering around San José, where the two- and three-story downtown buildings were framed by mountains and where horse-drawn buggies and electric streetcars shared broad avenues with open-topped automobiles appropriate to the mild, cloudless weather next day, Edgar would have to be careful. If he was going to sustain his image as a paragon of wholesome American manhood, he couldn’t afford to be caught doing many of the things he normally did--smoking cigarettes and seducing young women, to name but two. Kramer detested these practices. Still more abhorrent to Kramer’s way of thinking was Edgar’s penchant for seducing young men. By gratifying that particular appetite, Edgar wouldn’t just be endangering his relationship with the preacher. He’d also be risking trouble with the police, as sex between men was punishable in California by up to fifteen years of jail time.

His taste for hard liquor--scotch, if he could lay his lips on it--was something else Edgar had to conceal from Kramer. Among the leading temperance campaigners, Kramer had already helped to instigate legislation against the manufacture, sale, and delivery of alcohol in both Idaho and Washington State. He would have been horrified by Edgar’s recent behavior. Not two months prior, Edgar had gotten so drunk he’d been slung out of a Sunday morning service in the town of Bisbee, Arizona. Were Kramer to detect as much as the faint tang of alcohol on Edgar’s breath, the invitation to perform a solo concert at the First Baptist Church was sure to be withdrawn. Even the glowing testimonials from Edgar’s regimental commander and several well-known Baptist ministers wouldn’t save the concert, scheduled for that evening.

To publicize his show, Edgar gave an interview to a reporter from the San José Evening News. He said he was in town to recover from the year and a half he’d spent on the front line in France. What really caught the reporter’s interest was Edgar’s condemnation of the English war effort. Any military successes chalked up by the Allies had been achieved by soldiers from Canada and other English dominions, he contended. “England has done nothing save send over some officers--but I won’t say what sort of officers. Oh, yes, I will say that England has put up a lot of money. She has been a good meal ticket, but a poor fighter.”

“When do you figure the war will be over?” the reporter asked.

“Don’t know. And I wouldn’t venture a guess. I know one thing: The Germans are far from being whipped. The Germans are sending boys into the trenches now but--let me tell you--these boys can fight better than their daddies. They call this a boys’ war. It may be that, but it’s an awful war just the same. People over here have no idea of the horrors that are being enacted.” He spoke about how young children were being targeted. “When little, defenseless children are used for gun fodder it is going some . . .”

Edgar then unbuttoned his shirtfront and, in a graphic illustration of the brutality of war, showed the reporter a prominent scar on his chest. It was the size of a dollar coin. “A German woman gave me that,” he explained. “Yes, I was on German soil when she ran her saber through my breast. She thought I was there to destroy her home, and she came out to defend it. We were about fifty yards on German territory when we came upon this house, and that was as far as we got. When the poor woman discovered the red cross on my arm and found out that I was in the medical corps, she felt so dreadful about it that she broke out in tears. She gave me a sound thrust all right. The doctors had to remove two of my ribs in order to fix me up.”

At his solo show later that day, Edgar continued to reminisce about his battlefield ordeal. He also fielded questions from the big crowd, talked about his athletic career, and performed a selection of popular songs, which led one member of the audience to declare his singing had “seldom been equaled in this city.”

So many people wanted to speak with him and shake his hand after the show that he needed to take refuge in a side room to avoid being crushed. He only ventured back into the main body of the church once the brouhaha let up.

For the better part of an hour he mingled with his fans. He was partial to speaking about himself, but he was happy to listen to other people, to let them feel their opinions mattered, to satisfy their desire to warm themselves in the fireside glow of celebrity.

His success in convincing the residents of San José that he was Tom Longboat tempted him to feed them another barefaced lie. Now he started talking about how he’d played football alongside the great Jim Thorpe on Carlisle’s equally celebrated team. He took pride in his ability to make people buy cockamamie stories like that. Outside his fecund imagination, the closest he’d been to gridiron stardom appears to have come through his stepmother’s job as an inspector of footballs at a sporting goods plant. Merely to be an ex-teammate of Jim Thorpe was not sufficient for him, though. As if he wanted to map the limits of people’s credulity, he embellished his story by claiming to have been on the team that had defeated Harvard.

To sports fans of that era, Carlisle’s win over Harvard rated as one of football’s greatest upsets. Professing involvement in such a game was a rash move. Some football fanatic might be in a position to check the Carlisle team’s lineup and find no mention of Tom Longboat. Or someone familiar with the story might recall that Carlisle had triumphed only through exploiting a loophole in the rules of football. By associating himself with such underhand tactics, Edgar might encourage people to question his integrity, to scrutinize all the other things he’d told them, all the lies about competing as an athlete and training as a doctor. People might even wonder about his racial identity: In truth, he was no more Onondagan than he was an Olympic athlete or an army veteran.

2

Any minute there might be a knock on the door of Edgar’s hotel room. He might then find himself being quizzed by an officer from the San José Police Department. Once the police got ahold of him, Edgar’s life could veer in several directions, none of them good. Even allowing for the absence of a countrywide criminal database, there was always the fear that the authorities might discover he was a career con man with outstanding warrants against him in the states of Arizona and New York.

Before any of these scenarios could play out, Edgar quit town and headed south. He had with him only a single valise.

The Southern Pacific railroad’s Coast Line furnished the most convenient means for him to make the 416-mile journey to San Diego. Bordering the track were orchards, vineyards, and prosperous rural towns that would have made attractive subjects for his paintings and drawings. Just past Santa Barbara the bucolic scene gave way to a herd of seesawing oil derricks that strayed some distance into the ocean.

For travelers such as Edgar, whose mouth was seldom without a cigarette, the passing views were seen through the misty filter of the smoking car. The landscape had little in common with Central Falls, the close-packed blue-collar Rhode Island city where he’d been reared amid cotton mills, well-maintained tenements, and brick-paved streets, alive with the clip-clop of horse-drawn wagons, the rattle of trains on the elevated railway, and the clucking of the chickens kept in the barn to the rear of where he lived. He and his three younger siblings had grown up on Lincoln Avenue with their parents, both from Quebec. The Laplantes were surrounded by a sizable colony of other French-Canadian emigres, many of them carpenters like Edgar’s father. Despite retaining their own Roman Catholic festivals and holidays, their own church and school, their own correct if homespun brand of French, their own cuisine, and even their own newspapers, their community’s potent sense of cultural identity had somehow never defined Edgar, whose failure to acknowledge his French origins must have been one of the many sources of conflict with his now-estranged Francophile father.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "King Con"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Paul Willetts.
Excerpted by permission of Crown/Archetype.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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