Leo Koretz was a shyster of the first order. In a Chicago rife with corruption ("Only in 1920s Chicago could a public official prosecute criminals at his day job and in his spare time prepare the dead ones to face their final judgment."), Koretz was schooling them all. Mr Koretz, it seems, had found oil deep in the Panamanian jungle, oil he was selling to Standard Oil for a killing, and all of Chicago's hoi polloi wanted in on the easy money. Uh-huh.
Bernie Madoff would be proud.
Empire of Deception is part biography, part Chicago history, (Big Bill Thompson is there, of course, and Leopold and Loeb, and the 1919 race riots), and part early twentieth century guide to Panama and its canal. The book does begin a little slow, but it picks up once Koretz starts swindling - and more so once he's on the lam.
This is not a great, soaring biography in the style of Catherine the Great. It is more a history lesson of the ways in which man takes advantage of other men. Ultimately, Empire of Deception is a story as old as time: insatiable human greed. Koretz's greed, certainly, but also the greed of his (mostly wealthy) investors looking to make a little more money just a little faster, and also that of his prosecutors, though they were arguably more interested in power than in wealth.
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