Gathered together within the pages of this book is a roguish array of artful tricksters, fantastic fakers, rascally fraudsters and cunning conmen. They all bend the rules and usually the law. Yet however reprehensible their misdeeds, these thoroughly rotten scoundrels often display the very essence of enterprise and adventure.
It would be wrong to condone their antics, of course, but it is difficult not to admire their artifice. After all,...