City of Schemes

August 17, 2020
Set in post-WWI New York City, Thompson’s cleverly plotted fourth Counterfeit Lady novel (after 2019’s City of Scoundrels) finds Elizabeth Miles, an endearingly charismatic con artist, about to marry lawyer Gideon Bates, but she’s fearful that news of the wedding might reach nasty businessman Oscar Thornton, who once sought to kill her but who now thinks Elizabeth is dead after she faked her own death. Despite Elizabeth’s best efforts to keep the event quiet, word of her impending wedding does reach Oscar, who approaches Gideon and demands that Elizabeth repay the $250,000 she cheated him out of in an earlier book. Since she doesn’t have the cash, Elizabeth must devise a new, intricate scam to get out of the bind she’s in. Thompson enhances the caper plotline by having the real-life American Protective League, an anti-immigrant group that disbanded after the armistice in 1918, spawn a fictional successor group that hunts down Americans who aren’t sufficiently loyal to their country. Fans of classic grifter stories, such as The Sting, will be pleased. Agent: Nancy Yost, Nancy Yost Literary.

August 15, 2020
A family of grifters must execute a series of tricky cons to prevent a life-wrecking scandal in post-World War I New York. Elizabeth Miles is about to wed lawyer Gideon Bates when a dangerous man from her past tries to blackmail her. Although both Gideon and his mother know all about her sketchy past, Elizabeth doesn't want scandal to ruin their sterling New York society reputations. In an earlier swindle that involved spies and war profiteering, she crossed swords with a man named Oscar Thornton, who thinks she's dead. He discovers she's still alive only when Gideon's friend Logan Carstens returns from the war and his conniving fiancee, Rosemary Westerly, tells a gossip columnist about Elizabeth and Gideon's engagement, which had been kept hush-hush. Logan tells Gideon that although he's in love with a girl he met in France, she's too honorable to ask him to break his engagement. Logan's wartime sergeant tries cheating him out of money with a poorly executed con that Elizabeth immediately recognizes as the Spanish Prisoner. Then Thornton turns up and threatens Elizabeth with exposure unless she pays him off. In response, her father and half brother help her plan some countermoves that aim to get Thornton jailed as a Bolshevik spy, entice Rosemary to break her engagement so Logan can marry his true love, and leave the Bates family with a spotless reputation. A charming period piece, exciting and amusing in equal quantities.

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