Flim Flam explores the world of Canadian white-collar crime, a place inhabited by hustlers, wild gamblers, and crazy dreamers. It takes the reader to the Vancouver Stock Exchange, where dream salesmen have peddled wild stories of easy money, through the "moose pasture" scams of northern Canada, to the con artists who have been drawn to Toronto’s financial district. Along the way, you’ll meet crooked politicians, a young con man who confessed to a church congregation after he was "born again," disbarred lawyers, and the creator of a huge paper fortune who was left with nothing but a wolfskin coat when his real estate empire fell apart.

Greed is a powerful motivator that has taken some Canadians down strange roads. Some have ended up pocketing millions, but many more of Canada’s con artists have self-destructed, taking with them the fortunes of the people they bilked. In the end, they’ve usually fooled themselves, too.

Flim Flam shows that Canadians aren’t nearly as dull as we’d like to believe. When it comes to conning each other, we have some of the most colourful and interesting hucksters in the world. This book contains stories from all regions of the country. It will appeal to business and true-crime readers, as well as people who are students of human nature.

MARK BOURRIE holds a PhD in Canadian media and military history; he is a National Magazine Award–winning journalist and has been a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery since 1994. He has written hundreds of freelance pieces for most of the country’s major magazines and newspapers, which have resulted in several awards and nominations.

Bourrie lectures on propaganda and censorship at the Department of National Defence School of Public Affairs; media history and propaganda at Carleton University; and Canadian studies at the University of Ottawa, where he is also working on a Juris Doctor degree.

Bourrie’s book The Fog of War: Censorship of Canada’s Media in World War Two was the first examination of Canada’s wartime news-control system. It reached number six on the Maclean’s bestseller list. His academic paper “The Myth of the 'Gagged Clam': William Lyon Mackenzie King’s Press Relations,” published in Global Media Journal in 2010, is considered the authoritative analysis of the media strategies of Canada’s longest-serving prime minister. In 2011, Bourrie was invited to contribute to a collection of papers written by Canada’s top military historians. His essay “Harnessing Journalists to the War Machine” was published in 2012 in Canada and the Second World War.

Bourrie lives in Ottawa and is married to Marion Van de Wetering, a corporate lawyer working for the federal government. They have three children.

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