My Adventures with Your Money

A gripping account of the life of the American grifter and convicted stock swindler known as the “Jackal of Wall Street.”

“A hugely entertaining biography . . . A grand addition to the grifting genre.” —The Wall Street Journal

Master swindler George Graham Rice operated at the zenith of America's golden age of con artistry with plenty of illicit competition, but he stood apart from all others thanks to the sheer audacity, pure nerve and nefarious brilliance of his scams. Against the dark rise of American greed in the early Twentieth Century into the Roaring Twenties, the dapper but devious “GG” feasted on a nation of gullible prey with the flair of circus showman P.T. Barnum and on a financial scale comparable to modern fraudster Bernie Madoff.

Born Jacob Simon Herzig in 1870, he later changed his name—just as he would frequently change his swindles—to make himself into one of the most imaginatively successful villains in American history. With only seven dollars to his name, Rice parlayed a chance horse racing tip into millions, lost it all to pride and ego, then won it back many times over. Vilified by securities regulators as the “Jackal of Wall Street,” he sparked riots in Manhattan’s financial district by perfecting the art of “bucket shop” trading with the sole purpose of bilking the public blind. From the lawless frontier of the Gold Rush to his lust for dizzying riches on Wall Street, GG’s supreme knowledge of “sucker psychology” empowered him to orchestrate everything from street corner rip-offs for pocket change to elaborately scripted gambling hoaxes for hundreds of thousands of dollars, all while being vilified by old-guard profiteers like J.P.Morgan and befriended by gangsters like Arnold Rothstein.

In My Adventures with Your Money, T.D. Thornton has given us an unforgettable real-life version of The Sting with one of America's most colorful con men at its center.

“This remarkable read of a man who swindled thousands of people out of millions of dollars is for fans of con artists, stock market history, and the films Wall Street and The Wolf of Wall Street.” —Library Journal

“Thanks to Thornton's exuberant biography, the unaccountably forgotten Rice has been restored to his rightful place alongside the likes of P. T. Barnum and Charles Ponzi in the great rogues gallery of all-American hucksters, swindlers, and confidence men.” —Harold Schechter, author of The Mad Sculptor: The Model, the Maniac, and the Murder that Shook the Nation