Flim Flam

Steven R. Hewitt is an assistant professor of history at the University
of Saskatchewan.

Flim Flam is a disjointed collection of anecdotes almost exclusively
about well-known criminal cases, including those involving Bill Player,
Albert Walker, and Harry Oakes, to name but a few. The stories of Player
and Walker have already been covered ad nauseam by the media, and the
life of Oakes has been dealt with in books and at least one movie.

For each case, Bourrie offers little more than a basic recounting of
the facts. The criteria for selection are not always clear. For example,
the subject of one case, Mafia hitman Real Simard, is a murderer, not a
crook or scam artist. The activities of hackers, which fill a chapter on
computer scams, are examples of vandalism and have nothing to do with
fraud. For those cases that do involve fraud, the author ignores the
larger question about the economic and legal systems that allow such
practices to occur.

Finally, the claim that Flim Flam is about “Canada’s greatest
frauds, scams, and con artists” is simply wrong. The truly
“greatest” criminals would not have been caught; their stories
remain to be told.