Hornswogglers, Fourflushers & Snake-Oil Salesmen : True Tales of the Old West's Sleaziest Swindlers (Paperback)

from catscritch

This book is as fun to read as the name implies. Mayo presents many interesting old American slime-balls in quick and satisfying little chapters. It's often easy to say "that's greed for you" but there were other cons that could break your heart. While many of these scams seem so obvious to us to...

from hadden

Enjoyable book with short biographies of crooks, thieves and card sharks in the Old West. A good book for travel with short chapters explaining the life and crimes of some well known, lesser known and unknown charlatans. I especially liked the section on the Great Diamond Hoax where diamonds and ...

from Snowstorm14

Thanks to the folks at LibraryThing for giving me a copy. An interesting study of con men who plied their trade in the old west. Better written than most non-fiction but I thought the dialogue which the author admitted he took liberties with would have been better if it had been omitted. A bit to...

from EmScape

A very accessible and layperson-oriented non-fiction book. The subject matter is interesting and although the book lacks depth, it makes up for it in variety. Culled from various sources, the tales of con artists in the Old West are curated into this hodgepodge collection. There were some bits of...

from orangewords

The review by MarysGirl covers pretty much the exact same critiques I have about this title. However, it was an entertaining enough read, the content was mostly new to me, and I would read other titles by the same author, (if they were free). Weird blend of historical fiction with historical fact...