It seems almost everyone loves a great scam as long as they are not affected by its very painful effects. In 2019 Anna “Delvey” Sorkin was charged with multiple counts of theft of service and grand larceny after a run pretending to be a wealthy German heiress in New York. The world was fascinated and ended up following her fashion choices in court on Instagram! The new book Confident Women by Tori Telfer may sound like the reader is grabbing the latest in self-help books, but it is a fun and detailed look into the world of some of history’s most accomplished con women.
Confident Women starts with the story of Jeanne de Saint-Remy who used the little remaining claim of a bloodline she had, rumors, and some excellent forgeries to make jewelers believe she was best friend with Marie Antoinette. This in turn lead her to con multiple people into what eventually turned into the royal jewelers for a necklace made out of six hundred and forty-seven diamonds. If you follow spooky circles, chances are you’re well versed in the story of Kate and Maggie Fox who “accidentally” started a religious movement that ended up being crawling with female fraudsters who were finally getting their piece of the spiritualist prize. The book travels from 17th century France to modern day in the United States, while making stops all over the world. My only complaint is that the book is so easy to fall into that I wanted a whole lot more of this book.
Most of these women I’d never heard of, and it was good to be reminded that even though we as a society pan movies like Oceans 8, that there are women in the world who could successfully pull of confidence games that men can only dream about. For those who find the name Tori Telfer familiar, that’s likely because she also wrote the book Lady Killers, about deadly women in history.
Confident Women by Tori Telfer comes to shelves from Harper Perennial on February 23, 2021.
