Confident Women: Swindlers, Grifters, and Shapeshifters of the Feminine Persuasion
Written by Tori Telfer
Narrated by Jaime Lamchick
4/5
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About this audiobook
A thoroughly entertaining and darkly humorous roundup of history’s notorious but often forgotten female con artists and their bold, outrageous scams—by the acclaimed author of Lady Killers.
From Elizabeth Holmes and Anna Delvey to Frank Abagnale and Charles Ponzi, audacious scams and charismatic scammers continue to intrigue us as a culture. 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 the 1700s in Paris, Jeanne de Saint-Rémy scammed the royal jewelers out of a necklace made from six hundred and forty-seven diamonds by pretending she was best friends with Queen Marie Antoinette.
In the mid-1800s, sisters Kate and Maggie Fox began pretending they could speak to spirits and accidentally started a religious movement that was soon crawling with female con artists. A gal calling herself Loreta Janeta Velasquez claimed to be a soldier and convinced people she worked for the Confederacy—or the Union, depending on who she was talking to. Meanwhile, Cassie Chadwick was forging paperwork and getting banks to loan her upwards of $40,000 by telling people she was Andrew Carnegie’s illegitimate daughter.
In the 1900s, a 40something woman named Margaret Lydia Burton embezzled money all over the country and stole upwards of forty prized show dogs, while a few decades later, a teenager named Roxie Ann Rice scammed the entire NFL. And since the death of the Romanovs, women claiming to be Anastasia have been selling their stories to magazines. What about today? Spoiler alert: these “artists” are still conning.
Confident Women asks the provocative question: Where does chutzpah intersect with a uniquely female pathology—and how were these notorious women able to so spectacularly dupe and swindle their victims?
Tori Telfer
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.
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Reviews for Confident Women
77 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very interesting! I felt that at times the women were sensationalized. A criminal is a criminal and these women ruined lives.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The synopsis describes this book as a thoroughly entertaining and darkly humorous round-up of history’s notorious but often forgotten female con artists and their bold, outrageous scams and I honestly can't disagree. Tori Telfer has an interesting take on confidence crimes which is what made this book so much fun to read. She's researched a whole bunch of infamous con women to tell their stories, shining a light on their brilliant guile, confidence, and sheer audacity. If you love true crime then you'll love learning about the exploits and escapes of these remarkable women. I certainly had the best time learning about all of these criminals.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Loved it. The reader was really great and the stories were wonderful