14 books like Spectacular Rogue

Before Ponzi was a scheme, Ponzi was a man. His name was Charles Ponzi. He sailed to the US from Europe with nothing – after gambling away his nest egg during the trans-Atlantic crossing – and then made himself an ill-gotten fortune through a swindle so famous it is now named for him. I love learning history, but not through academic texts. I need to learn it through stories. And the critical ingredient that makes compelling narrative nonfiction are the details that enable me to see the characters and their world in my mind. Zuckoff’s book put me in Boston in 1920, with the sights, sounds, and odors to bring Ponzi and his victims to life.

I came to Finney’s novel after watching both of the excellent (and, for the most part, faithful) film adaptations (1956 and 1978). Finney’s novel is worth a read for its own sake, not least because an incredibly interesting chapter (13) explicitly weaves race into the narrative that’s absent from both films. Finney’s book represents (rather literally) how we tend to see plant life–when we think about it at all–as alien.

Cue alien seed pods that end up on Earth and begin to proliferate wildly–another deep-seated fear we have about vegetation–that they’ll spread and take over. The seed pods colonize humans, rendering them indifferent and emotionless–exactly the view we’ve always had of plant life, symbol par excellence of encroaching impersonality.

After watching (more than once) the famous 1956 film adaptation, I started Finney’s novel primed to think about the conflict between communism and American individualism. But the novel is actually very… show more.

Westlake’s unlucky, sad-sack adventure hero John Dortmunder is the greatest conman character in crime fiction. Years ago, at a bookstore coffee shop, I perused some book reviews for what to read next. One reviewer recommended Westlake’s comic caper series. I walked to the mystery section, pulled out Don’t Ask, opened to a random page, read it, and laughed out loud. That was not just good luck: There’s a hilarious passage on nearly every page of the book. It’s about two fictitious nations fighting over a religious artifact, but that does not begin to sum up the zany genius of Westlake’s plot. Donald Westlake was a sort of imposter himself -- he wrote under more than a dozen pen names throughout a spectacular career that spanned half a century.

It was on my favorite TV show as a kid, In Search of… starring Leonard Nimoy, that I first heard of Anna Anderson, the woman who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. The tsar was murdered with his entire family in 1918 – or so it was thought. So who was this old woman living in Virginia claiming to be Anastasia? Decades later, I saw the headlines reporting that DNA tests proved Anderson was an imposter, but I never knew one percent of the story before diving into The Resurrection of the Romanovs. Reading along while a mystery from my childhood was so painstakingly solved was great fun. If only now they could find the Loch Ness Monster.

Essentially a conservative response to Zinn’s wildly successful book.

Paul Johnson, who started out on the political left in England and shifted to the right with works such as Modern Times, writes in a style that is superior in its command of the material than Zinn but also a bit cranky at times or just simply odd.

His loathing of Thomas Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson is palpable, just as his veneration of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge is puzzling. Yet his passages on jazz, the eclectic architecture of Southern California, or the origins of the Coca-Cola x Pepsi rivalry are unforgettable.

Johnson’s book could be viewed as a necessary corrective to Zinn - or simply as a contrarian companion volume. I actually use both when teaching U.S. history.

Charles Joseph Carter, known as Carter the Great, was a real American magician whose career started in the late 1800s when he was just ten.

This book, which I’ve loved enough to read three times, takes place later in his career and postulates that one of the things he did (pure fiction) was to have President Warren G. Harding join him on stage and be cut into pieces, have his head sawed off, and then be restored to health. And then, shortly thereafter, Harding is dead. I am not going to give away the rest of the story because it’s way too good to spoil in any way.

Read it and enjoy historical fiction mystery at what I think is its finest.

It's not strictly a biography, but it might as well be one. A brilliant stylist, Breslin creates a fictionalized dramatization that has the unerring ring of Runyon’s truth.

His chronicling of the raffish world of Broadway and adjacent side streets was the basis for the musical Guys and Dolls. Breslin uses copious dialogue and minutely observed incidents to flesh out things that happened or may very well have happened.

I loved delving into history in this meticulously researched, well-written novel about the young woman who was the Lindbergh baby’s nanny.

Although I started reading the novel looking for clues as to the kidnappers, the protagonist’s story was so engaging that when the kidnapping actually happened, I was shocked! I had become so wrapped up in the story I forgot I knew how it ended.

If you want a novel to transport you to another time and place, make you forget you have to get up the next day, and keep you up until 2 in the morning reading, this is the one!

This book is a comprehensive guide to US regulations regarding money laundering; it also mentions some international organisms that fight against this crime. By including real-life cases in which it is specified how money laundering was carried out, I learned a lot because money laundering is a complex crime, believe me! It’s ideal for those who also want to know how a financial investigation is carried out since it takes you by the hand to understand what to do. Without a doubt a very complete guide.

Megan has been transparent about the fact that Behind the Red Door is not the most popular of her books, but it’s my personal favorite!

Fern Douglas is out of the loop: a missing woman shows up on the news whose famous kidnapping two decades ago—and subsequent return—everyone seems to have heard about. But Fern has no memory of that story; she only knows that she has seen the woman’s face before, and she comes to fear that she might have somehow been involved in what happened to her.

This book has one of the best portrayals of chronic anxiety I’ve read, and one of the most twisted and f-ed up stories, which I absolutely tore through. Read it, and prepare to be chilled to the bone.