I humbly suggest that true crime freaks should get into learning about scammers instead of serial killers. I LOVE reading about fraud and grifts and pyramid schemes. true crime ppl have all this paranoid energy about murder, which is rare in the grand scheme of things.....maybe instead that could be channeled into some productive rage toward capitalism.
And u know a side effect of learning about scam artists is that you start to understand certain things about economics, and just how STUPID these systems are and how easily they are taken advantage of....and I'd much rather people gained a passing familiarity with economics than whatever armchair psychologist shit these true crimers get on. We need fewer people who think they're experts on "sociopaths" and more people who understand how people like Elizabeth Holmes and the WeWork guy were able to do what they did
Here are some of my favorite books about financial scams:
The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust by Diana B. Henriques.
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis (about the 2008 stock market collapse).
The Caesar's Palace Coup: How a Billionaire Brawl Over the Famous Casino Exposed the Corruption of the Private Equity Industry by Max Frumes and Sujeet Indap. (I admit I've never finished this one; the writing is hard to read.)
The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute, by Zac Bissonette. I bought this book because of the subtitle and I have never regretted it. You must read it.
Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abagnale. They turned this one into a movie! The book was very different and is worth reading.
The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion, by Elliot Brown and Maureen Farrell. I haven't read this one yet, but it's on my tbr pile!
Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy Inside the Catholic Church, by Gareth Gore. I'm reading this one right now. The author is a financial journalist who stumbled onto this story by unraveling a bank failure in Spain.
And here's a list of more non-fiction books about fraud and financial scams. The first book on this list is about Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes, which I also haven't read yet.
Enjoy!
Atomic Shrimp on youtube is a fun watch to learn about different kinds of scams!
Scam Goddess is an award-winning comedy podcast dedicated to fraud and all those who practice it. Every episode, the Scam Goddess herself La
theres even podcasts!
https://pca.st/podcast/05a4a460-b5dc-0137-faef-0acc26574db2
