You can tell a lot research has gone into writing the story of Mrs. Gordon Baillie who was a Victorian woman who was able to hide her beings in Scotland to become one of the most notorious con-women in well-to-do society. It's packed with first-hand accounts and times hard to believe the situations she found herself in.

Highly recommended to crime readers

A well-researched account of “Annie,” a con woman during the Victorian age who succeeded as a grifter at a time when this would have been highly unusual for a woman.

Luke most real-life con biographies, there isn’t really enough there to warrant an entire book on the subject. This is the case with Mrs Baillie as well, though there’s plenty of interesting anecdotal information scattered through the book to keep your attention. Her story is a good one, even if it was probably better suited to a long form article rather than a full length book.

Regardless, the research is good, the book has a good sense of atmosphere, and it flows well in a narrative sense, especially compared to a lot of biographies.

I want to thank Netgalley and the author's for gifting me the ebook. What a great read! If you love history make sure you check this novel out.

I knew next to nothing about Mrs. Gordon Baillie going into this book. Now I feel like I could have a full conversation about her. This book was very well researched and well crafted. It was written in a way that any one could read, regardless of how much one knows about the subject.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
What a facsimating story. This would make a fantastic film. As a writer of Victorian crime myself I was captivated with the audacity and nerve of this deceitful conniving woman. Simply facsimating and a captivating read.

I started this one here on netgalley and ended up finishing it after my copy had expired. This story is a really good read and I should have given it all the love while I had it on netgalley! This is just a quick review to make sure I'm leaving feedback on here and I will write a more in depth review and add the link at a later time.

I really want to like this book, but I just cannot get through it. I have gathered from other reviews that it gets better after the dry first few chapters, but I have been going at it for months now and I just can't do it. If this had been an audiobook I am sure I would have loved it. But in this format it sadly just isn't for me.

Where should I start from? Ahh, there are not many biographies of con people, especially a Victorian woman, so I leapt onto it once saw the title! And oh my! Glad I have done it!

The writers had done an extreme research about Annie Gordon Baillie who had lived and "performed" in XIX century in Victorian area. Her character, style, the way she was obsessive with conning people from middle class to high elite society was an awe! In the tears of laughter and fascination, I was closely observing and waiting for the end of her "adventures" in Scotland, England, Australia, New Zealand, US and was pitying those poor people sometimes she has played tricks on.

The story is being told as a biography with court cases, witness statements, extensive descriptions of events and to be honest, I enjoyed each and every one of them, even learned some tricks (not because I'm gonna use them!). I was surprised how heartless she was towards her own children, didn't care about poor cabman's situation, and how she tricked Scottish crofters and elite society around her.

My only concern with this book was around the extensive repetitions and long description of cases where I thought the writers did deliberately to mix fiction with non-fiction. It made me get confused if this was a true story. Overall, an enjoyable and fun learning journey for me!

*This book has been provided to me by the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review of mine*

Honestly, I didn't finish this book. As much as I wanted to like it, I just didn't. I was so excited to start reading it, and I found the subject matter to be fascinating, however the writing dragged. I understand that there was not a lot of specific details to be found among the surviving information, however (and I may be off base on this) I felt like the authors put a lot of their own opinions into the story. Generally the book was fine, but not good enough for me to finish it.

i super enjoyed reading this non fiction book! it was so much fun and super helpful for me to learn more about this particular subject. thanks so much, netgalley!

I knew nothing about Mrs. Gordon Baillie before reading this book. I must say, I am always a bit suspicious when reading non-fiction. However, this book was so well- written and, I would say, well-researched, that it had such a fun amd smooth flow about Annie's "adventutes" and getting out of adventures-gone-wrong that it felt almost like fiction. I was so happy to read about a woman who was... unusual for the time she lived in and I'm eager to read more similar stories.

It's well researched and I liked to learn about this new to me con woman.
Unfortunately I found it bit too slow and struggled a bit.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

The subject matter of the book is unusual and I was honestly amazed by what one woman had accomplished. The scope of her adventures was so international and just on the strength of her travels I would have thought there would be a movie about Annie. The book is ambitious in tackling her life story however it does take time to get into and is quite dense, reading like a traditional historical book, so its not a quick read but one of depth drawing on multiple sources. However the passion of the authors comes through and their desire to find and research all the details they can, such as what happened to Annie's children.

I was given a preview copy of the book via Netgallery in exchange for a review, however all opinions are my own.

In this book, we are immersed in the life of Mrs. Gordon Baillie, also known as Annie, who becomes one of the most well-known con women in the Victorian age. We start from the beginning, at her birth in the 1800s, then her childhood, and so on. The plot is interesting enough to make you want to keep going. The writing is beautiful, easy to picture every scene.
If you like Victorian stories I definitely recommend this one!

This book is subtitled the life and crimes of Mrs Gordon Baillie, so it is important to say that this is one of over 40 names that this woman has already been identified as travelling under. She was a repeat scam artist and fraudster – operating at both smaller and greater levels in an apparently completely obsessive way that at times approached blatantly reckless. But bizarrely she managed to operate and thrive in this way for decades and even when caught there would be people who openly thought that she should be treated with leniency because of her beauty and charm. By any assessment she has to be described as a truly extraordinary woman. How did she get away with her lifestyle for so long?
She was born illegitimate in Peterhead, north east Scotland in 1848. Her mother was an agricultural worker from a poverty stricken family and her father an unsuccessful farmer. He had inherited money from his parents who were professional actors although his natural father was claimed to be a more powerful man. Although largely illiterate it appears that from her teens she was linking herself to mission churches and schools - allowing her to seek money from sponsors and run up bills around the actual buildings. But she had to keep moving to avoid her creditors so a mobile lifestyle developed – first Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, London and even further to Paris, Florence and Rome and back (with an increasingly wealthier facade). This ended in imprisonment in 1872. But, nothing loath, she came out of 6 months jail with a new name and re-invented herself as the daughter of an aristocrat with country estates; with a wealthy sponsor she started again. Her routine frauds of daily living were reinforced by her claims to be a writer, a theatre impresario, and eventually supporter of the displaced crofters of Skye. She travelled extensively across Britain, to Australia, the USA and New Zealand too – allegedly looking for “land for crofter re-settlement”. She appeared to have two possible husbands (with 4 children) and a number of other attendant men who helped with her schemes. Ultimately she would be tried in 1888 with a sentence of 5 years. After release a life of similar, but more easily spotted, crimes followed until her “disappearance”.
But ultimately she was a supreme “player” of life, of the class system, of male gullibility in the face of a pretty woman. She used an ability to comprehensively and systematically lie to people. Using and manipulating the “introduction” system – with forgery if necessary. She used the strange financial systems of “credit” for respectable people and what in practice was a largely unregulated use of cheques and often people’s unwillingness to admit to the fact that they had been scammed. Even when women finally saw through her the men might be lured with great social events (bills unpaid) that were highly entertaining. Men of course controlled the money.
When complaints were raised against her she – through her beauty and seeming important social contacts – could often avoid investigation. But also her constant habits of ordering goods and services often escaped effective prosecution on the principle that “intent to” could not be proved. Her constant change of names (often through marriage) meant that her crimes across large areas could not easily be linked either. She had a string of “others” she would place the blame on, but she also had maybe one, two or three other properties (often not paid for) to escape to if things became hot.
Davis and Lassman were able to track a substantial part of her activities through the increasing number of newspaper reports (The British Newspaper Archive being key to this). But “Annie” as they called her had increasing newspaper coverage as the decades passed. Many of the stories were lurid, based on personal testimonies. They might be plagiaristic and contain inaccuracies but taken together the sheer scale of them and the crimes reported left this reader almost open mouthed with a combination of wonder at her sheer audacity and achievements. You might not have wanted to on the receiving end of her frauds, but she was surely a truly exceptional woman – and one who moved from abject poverty to incredible places. The scale of her ideas, and her capacity to constantly re-invent herself convincingly were extraordinary. It should be said that men were her admirers but others saw her as an example of the essential duplicity of women – therefore she was a “celebrity” in her time. That was ultimately her downfall as her notoriety meant the scale of her criminal behaviour eventually – albeit after a very long time – became evident.
This is an interesting, and eye opening, read on so many levels. Select it for tales of the personal, the flaws of our legal systems, the sheer inequalities that existed, between rich and poor and men and women, of for the “opportunities” for those who indulged in international travel – but I recommend you read it.

This book was really well written and got my attention immediately. We get to follow the intriguing story of Annie, or Mrs Gordon Baillie, who ended up going down in history as one of the most notorious con women in the Victorian age. The book is linear, starting with theories of her birth, following her childhood in poverty, in a small Scottish fishing town in the 1800s, all through to her mysterious disappearance.

Despite being illiterate, Annie used her intelligence and beauty to swindle compulsively, while maintaining an image of wealthy sociality dedicating her life to charity. Her schemes spread far across the land, through 3 continents, for four decades. A truly remarkable story!

It's a really comprehensive investigative work, and I congratulate the writers for their thorough research and quest for the truth behind what could have easily been registered in history as a terrible, terrible person. Instead, we're introduced to a complex person who deserved to have her story told.

Thank you for the advance copy!

I loved the premise of this book and was entrigued to learn more about Annie. It took a minute to get into the narrative, as the wide variety of research could slow down the narrative of the book. I loved to see Annie cross continents without any real worry of previous debts. I enjoyed the arc of the book, but ultimately felt like it could be made more concise.

I read this ARC for an honest review
All thoughts and opinions are mine

A little slow in the beginning, once I got into it, the story kicked in for me
Incredibly well researched - this is such a worthwhile read

I loved the way it was written. The language used creates such a vivid picture

I am really into historical fiction and this really worked for me

thanks to netgalley for providing me with this e-arc.

the premise of this book hooked me very early on. unfortunately, i felt like it was poorly executed. i could tell the author had researched these characters well and put their stories together nicely, but the pacing was a bit off and i struggled to get into it, however many times i kept trying. i wish there was more to it.

This took a few chapters to get into, at first it read like it was going to be pretty dry historical non-fiction. But how wrong I was. Once you get into the flow of it, the author gets so much out of Annie's story.

There's an incredible amount of research that's gone into this, it's hard to imagine a more thorough account of Annie's life. It's packed with first-hand accounts and recognition of not only the facts, but rumours that have never been confirmed. What this does really well though is that it reinterprets all of that into a compelling story that flows well throughout. They did such a great job of bringing her to life. It also manages to be very funny in parts – I found myself laughing at some of the scrapes that Annie got up to. And boy did she get up to some wild things, who knew there's so many different ways to swindle people?

Overall I definitely recommend this to anyone who's into a bit of true crime or even historical fiction. It's a great balance of giving all the facts while bringing it together in an engaging narrative.