BOOK REVIEW: Chasing Phil by David Howard

Phil Kitzer was a con artist. He specialized in taking control of small, often troubled, banks and using them to generate worthless CD’s, which he then sold to other swindlers who used them to appear to control large amounts of capital. In 1977, two junior FBI agents picked up Kitzer’s trail, almost by accident, and spent the next two years chasing Phil around the world and trying to bring him to justice.


The pros:
* The book really ties in together nicely.
I was a little scared that this book was going to be one of those detective novels that drag on and on before they got to anything good but it really caught my attention even in the first chapter.
There are some complex situations that, I fear, will be a little too hard to understand with some people but it isn't anything too thought provoking.
All the characters do come to life, which is very important with a novel. 

* The book is as much a history of the FBI as it is one specific group of criminals. 
A few years before these incidents take place, the FBI concentrated on a narrow range of crimes, and expected agents to follow a narrow set of rules, never leave their home city, and comply with a rigid bureaucracy. In this case, Special Agents JJ Wedick and Jack Brennan break rules by the dozens. The book doesn’t dwell on it, but you can imagine the firestorm that developed when two agents turn up in Europe without official permission. And David Howard captures the FBI’s struggle as it realizes the types of cases Wedick and Brennan are building-and decides to support the agents and forces itself to modernize.

* The lives of Kitzer and his fellow con men are exciting reading. 
As usual, you can’t help but wonder how successful they would have been as legitimate businessmen. 
It was amazing to watch their ability to build a fortune on paper, and use it to con people out of real assets. 
And they were not above conning each other, either out of the dinner check or $200K in cash.

* There was a good amount of subtle humor. 
For example, near the end of the book, there is a quotation from Kitzer explaining why his crimes are below the radar of the FBI, why the FBI would never spend the resources to investigate him even if they knew of his crimes, and how prosecutors and juries would be uninterested. 
The only problem was that he was giving this speech to two FBI undercover agents who had spent two years as his junior associates.

The Cons:

* If you are not a true crime fan, I suspect the story would begin to drag and become repetitive. 
While I enjoyed the explanations of the relatively complex scams, I do have an innate interest in this type of material. 
Readers with a more casual interest may find it repetitive and dry.

* There are quite a few named characters in the book, and it was sometimes tough to keep them all straight. 
The author also switches between calling them by first or last name, furthering the confusion.

-Overall-

I enjoyed the book. It was a great look at the actions of a group of con men, and their struggles to run a (criminal) business and deal with many of the same problems as legitimate businessmen. The growth of the FBI, from a glorified local police force into a global law-enforcement organization, also is a great part of the book. But the star of the book is Phil Kitzer, a slippery but charismatic figure that you can’t help but like. There is plenty of sadness and struggle in the book, although it does come to a somewhat happy ending.

If you are interested in picking yourself up a copy, follow the link HERE!