Catch Me If You Can meets Patricia Highsmith in this "stylish" (New
York Times Book Review) page-turner of greed and obsession, survival
and self-invention that is a piercing character study of one
unforgettable female con artist.
At the end of the 1990s, with the art market finally recovered from its
disastrous collapse, Miss Rebecca Farwell has made a killing at
Christie's in New York City, selling a portion of her extraordinary art
collection for a rumored 900 percent profit. Dressed in couture YSL,
drinking the finest champagne at trendy Balthazar, Reba, as she's known,
is the picture of a wealthy art collector. To some, the elusive Miss
Farwell is a shark with outstanding business acumen. To others, she's a
heartless capitalist whose only interest in art is how much she can
make.
But a thousand miles from the Big Apple, in the small town of Pierson,
Illinois, Miss Farwell is someone else entirely--a quiet single woman
known as Becky who still lives in her family's farmhouse, wears sensible
shoes, and works tirelessly as the town's treasurer and controller.
No one understands the ins and outs of Pierson's accounts better than
Becky; she's the last one in the office every night, crunching the
numbers. Somehow, her neighbors marvel, she always finds a way to get
the struggling town just a little more money. What Pierson doesn't
see--and can never discover--is that much of that money is shifted into
a separate account that she controls, "borrowed" funds used to finance
her art habit. Though she quietly repays Pierson when she can, the
business of art is cutthroat and unpredictable.
But as Reba Farwell's deals get bigger and bigger, Becky Farwell's debt
to Pierson spirals out of control. How long can the talented Miss
Farwell continue to pull off her double life?
