“Only a historian and writer of Harper’s caliber,” writes Yates, “could cope with all of this. There are so many bad guys, so many victims, and so many powerful enablers such as Joplin’s mighty Gilbert Barbee—part of the miracle of this book is how amazingly well Harper manages the whirling cast and script.”
Swindler. Murderer. Scoundrel. Robert Boatright was one of Middle America’s greatest confidence men. Although little remembered today, his story provides a rare glimpse into America’s criminal past. Working in concert with a local bank and an influential Democratic boss, “this dean of modern confidence men” and his colorful confederacy of con men known as the Buckfoot Gang seemed untouchable. A series of missteps, however, led to a string of court cases across the country that brought Boatright’s own criminal enterprise to an end. And yet, the con continued: Boatright’s successor, John C. Mabray, and his cronies, many of whom had been in the Buckfoot Gang, preyed upon victims across North America in one of the largest midwestern criminal syndicates in history before they were brought to heel.
Like the works of Sinclair Lewis, Boatright’s story exposes a rift in the wholesome midwestern stereotype and furthers our understanding of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American society.
Kimberly Harper earned a master’s degree in history from the University of Arkansas. She received the Missouri Humanities Council’s Distinguished Achievement in Literature (Non-Fiction) Award for her book White Man’s Heaven: The Lynching and Expulsion of Blacks in the Southern Ozarks, 1894–1909.