The Pretender: How Martin Frankel Fooled the Financial World and Led the Feds on the Most Publicized Manhunts in History

Martin Frankel was an odd genius. In his twenties, he was still living with his parents and had only fantasies about women, not dates. He had fantasies about making millions in investments, too, and took as heroes Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. He had a truly encyclopedic knowledge of financial markets, and yet he relied on casting astrological charts to make his millions. And it is certainly true that he made his millions, and lived a geeky nerd's version of a millionaire's life. But Frankel was a genius in insurance fraud, and his huge but ephemeral fortune was built on a pyramid scheme of robbing one insurance fund to pay into another. Ellen Joan Pollock covered Frankel's scam for The Wall Street Journal, and has put together a page-turner, full of socialites, celebrity priests, custom limousines and aircraft, sadomasochistic sex, and of course the boom and bust that was Frankel's career. The Pretender: How Martin Frankel Fooled the Financial World and Led the Feds on One of the Most Publicized Manhunts in History (Wall Street Journal Books) is not an uplifting tale, but it is exciting, and lots of it is over-the-top unbelievable, except that much of the unbelievable parts come from solid, stolid, financial reportage.For starters, Frankel would never make it as a character in a novel; he and his even temporary success are just too unlikely. He was, indeed, vastly knowledgeable about the financial world he moved into. He was good at picking successful trades. But besides being generally amoral, his great fault as a trader was an almost comic one: he could not trade. Once he had accounts and investments to make, he froze. But he must have talked a good game to get financiers interested in him, and women interested in his sadomasochistic hobbies. Instead of making money on trades, he was essentially making it by looking constantly for new investors so that he could pay off the most recent ones and could continue to produce bogus quarterly reports which showed how many millions he was pulling in. He used the services of a celebrity priest to try to tap the vast resources of the Catholic Church in what would have been for him a huge money laundering scheme. Instead, of course, the house of cards eventually fell down, taking Frankel with it, along with real con men and other conned men. Pollack's story is of one spectacular financial crime of the nineties. There is no pedantry here about how such crimes are to be avoided, but it is frankly amazing that regulators and usually savvy business investors allowed themselves enough laziness or greediness to be convinced by a very unappealing character. It was a time of the dot.com phenomenon, and "the millionaire next door." There never has been a time when get-rich-quick schemes weren't there, ready to take money from the credulous. Frankel's story, however, with remarkable details, cameos from famous politicians and businessmen, and silly sexual exploits, represents a unique, diverting

This is a great read. Pollock finds enough twists and turns and has enough insight into human nature to turn a story of a very weird guy in the insurance biz into a fascinating tale of money, sex and greed. Easy to get through, fun to read.

after receiving this book as a christmas gift i was extremely pleased over how an important subject could also be a great read.

This is an *amazing* story. Marty Frankel was an expert trader, but he had a block against actually executing a trade. He was Jewish but not only had ties high up into the Vatican, he actually fought extradition to remain in a German jail. He was more than seriously challenged in the sex appeal area, but had a harem of women to cater to his decidedly kinky tastes. A very strange man. A "very"must read.

Anyone familiary with Ellen Joan Pollock's life and work, her history with Steve Brill and American Lawyer Magazine knows in their heart that this is the book she was born to write. For the story of Marty Frankel, ultimately a rather small time swindler from Toledo Ohio of all places is really bigger than this sick moron's life. On the surface one might think this is just another tale of a stock trading scam artist who if he hadn't fled the country and made us authorities find him would barely have made the papers. But this is such a degrading and astonishingly bizarre account of a lifestyle that one wouldn't really think could exist is civilized society. It is a condemnation of the internet culture where women can be purchased, bound, abused and discarded. It is a condemnation of the greed that allowed even lawyers at such a firm as akin gump, supposedl one of the top law firms in the country, to lend its imprimatur to a scumbag, as long as the scumbag had the money for a retainer and they didnt care where it came from. it is the story of loose regulation and of crimes that can go because authorities can either be bought up, lobbied out, or are just too busy harrassing innocent people to care about an actual thief. These are gigantic themes in the hands of a master craftsman of gossip and innuendo, a woman known for hiding behind pillars to get her information. When Ellen Pollock says she has interviewed 400 people, you know she has. You see it in the detail of every page which you leaves you wondering- how did she learn that. Her audacity in telling the entire story, even though small minded superiors urged caution is a giant reward for the reader. For days after I finished reading the Pretender, I wondered why we should care about this guy. He is so moronic, so Toledo, and yet rolls along. Does he deserve a book ? He doesn't deserve anything but years in a Taliban prison, he is now serving time in Connecticut. One expects he will be back with a new scam. That will be good news if it results in Pollack being back on his tail.