"Of the entire grifters, the arrogance guy is the aristocrat, " wrote David Maurer, a proposition he definitively proved within the gigantic Con, probably the most colourful, well-researched, and exciting works of criminology, ever written. A professor of linguistics who really expert in underworld argot. Maurer received the belief of hundreds and hundreds of swindlers who permit him in on no longer easily their language, yet their folkways and the astonishingly complicated and tricky schemes wherein unsuspecting marks, hooked by means of their very own greed and dishonesty, have been "taken off" -- i.e., cheated -- of hundreds of thousands upon millions of greenbacks. the goods of fantastic ingenuity, crack timing, and a focus to each final aspect, those "big cons" richly deserve Maurer's description as "the optimal swindling machine which guy has ever invented."
The significant Con is a treasure trove of yank lingo (the write, the rag, the payoff, ropers, shills, the chilly poke, the convincer, to place at the ship) and indelible characters (Yellow child Weil, Barney the Patch, the Seldom obvious child, Limehouse Chappie, Larry the Lug). It served as a resource for the Oscar-winning movie the edge and should satisfaction fanatics of such writers as David Mamet, Jim Thompson, Elmore Leonard, and William Burroughs for its droll, totally authoritative examine the undying pursuit of relieving one's fellow guy of his surplus cash.