Canada's national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, also couldn't resist an early mention of our book, including a brief excerpt in its Social Studies column:
"If a man wearing a pinkie ring offers to make a bet with you, walk away," Todd Robbins writes in The Modern Con Man. "You may have already known this: Human beings have a strong sense of instinct. What you may not have known is what exactly the pinkie ring means in the world of the grifter. Con men have been wearing expensive pinkie rings for a long time, originally to help their friends out of a specific and unfortunate financial quandary if a dark day arrives. See, if the swindler in question were to meet a sudden end, he wouldn't want to saddle his pals with the burden of paying for a burial. Hence the pinkie ring, which was to be pawned to cover the cost."
This might be three months early, but it does make us international.
To keep this theme going, and if you're interested, the above photo is "Canada Bill" Jones, one of the greatest three-card monte players there ever was, who learned his con craft after coming to Canada. In 1880, he died in Reading, PA, leaving the cost of his burial to the city. That is, until a group of Chicago gamblers heard about his death and quickly paid back the town. They even put up a marker for the legendary man. Brings a tear to the eye.
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