“Fascinating …. If this nonfiction tome hasn’t already been optioned for a movie, what are you waiting for, Hollywood?”  - The Day (New London, CT)
“Dean Jobb has found a fascinating yet little-known jazz-age tale and told it with style and smarts. Get in on the action.” - Jonathan Eig, New York Times–bestselling author of Get Capone
“Dean Jobb’s exploration of financial shaman Leo Koretz’s shameless scheming is a great read, but it’s also so much more than that. A brilliantly researched tale of greed, ambition, and our desperate need to believe in magic.” - Douglas Perry, author of Eliot Ness
“Except to those being swindled, swindlers make wonderful, swaggering copy, and Dean Jobb has made splendid use of the material in this juicy retelling. What a great caper movie this would make!” - Marq de Villiers, author of Our Way Out
“An absorbing tale of astonishing duplicity.” - Maclean's
“A thrilling read—a journey through the evasive American dream of easy wealth and its inevitable demise.” - Canada's History
"Dean Jobb is a master of narrative nonfiction on par with Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City. Jobb’s biography of Leo Koretz, the Bernie Madoff of the Jazz Age, is among the few great biographies that read like a thriller." - Esquire
“This lively, entertaining, and depressingly relevant history of a man and his con reads like a novel and will be enjoyed by fans of popular history as well as true crime.” - Library Journal (starred review)
“[A] rollicking story of greed, financial corruption, dirty politics, and illicit sex.” - Publishers Weekly
“A captivating tale of high-flying financial chicanery in 1920s Chicago. Thoroughly enjoyable.” - Gary Krist, author of City of Scoundrels
“An absolutely rollicking tale that is one part The Sting, one part The Great Gatsby, and one part The Devil in the White City. Impressively researched and brilliantly told, Empire of Deception vividly recreates the unscrupulous side of 1920s Chicago.” - Karen Abbott, New York Times–bestselling author of Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy
“A guilty-pleasure reminder that the most audacious bad guys have always been the most entertaining. In Dean Jobb’s hands, the free-for-all 1920s, a sweet spot in the history of greed and corruption, reads like a Gatsby-Ponzi mashup.” - Neal Thompson, author of A Curious Man
“Highly readable. . . . Will convince any sensible reader that when it comes to investing in crackpot schemes, nobody ever learns anything by experience. Leo Koretz did exactly what Bernie Madoff did, and came to the same end, as did his investors. A dramatic read, and a useful lesson!” - Michael Korda, author of Charmed Lives
“Like getting on the storied Cyclone roller coaster at Coney Island . . . holding your breath throughout its peaks and valleys, then getting out of the car, flushed and shaken, only wanting to ride it all over again . . . [a] thrilling, too-wild-for-fiction tale.” - The Globe and Mail
“Intoxicating and impressively researched, Jobb’s immorality tale provides a sobering post-Madoff reminder that those who think everything is theirs for the taking are destined to be taken.” - New York Times Book Review
“Comprehensively researched and enthralling . . . high-stakes drama of the first order . . . unmasking [a] master swindler and revealing the author as an equally masterful storyteller.” - Washington Post
“Terrific . . . a fast-paced, fact-laden narrative populated by red-blooded personalities . . . a captivating account.” - Winnipeg Free Press
“A laugh-out-loud page-turner, full of gullibility and twists and turns . . . a jaw-dropping, rollicking good read.” - Booklist
“Empire of Deception adds Leo Koretz to Chicago’s rogues’ gallery of the 1920s . . . great research . . . a masterpiece of narrative set-up and vivid language.” - Chicago Tribune