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Editorial Review Product Description
Art Williams was a precocious student with a bright future, but his dreams shattered when his father abandoned the family and his bipolar mother lost her wits. Living in one of Chicago’s worst housing projects, Williams was breaking open parking meters at age twelve and by his mid-teens he was robbing drug dealers. His quest for both a father figure and stable income would merge at the age of sixteen, when a criminal master nicknamed “Da Vinci” taught him the centuries-old art of counterfeiting.
Following a stint in prison, Williams returned to society to find that the Treasury Department had issued the most secure hundred-dollar bill ever created: the 1996 New Note. He spent months trying to circumvent its security features before arriving at a bill so perfect that even law enforcement had difficulty distinguishing it from the real thing. Williams went on to print millions in counterfeit, selling it to criminal organizations and using it to fund cross-country spending sprees. Spending his fake money as quickly as he could print it but still unsatisfied, he dropped everything to track down his long-lost father in the wilds of Alaska, setting in motion a chain of betrayals that would be his undoing.
The Art of Making Money is a stirring portrait of the rise and inevitable fall of a modern-day criminal mastermind.
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The Blind SIde
Jason Kersten has written a fascinating book on Art Williams, a truly masterful counterfeiter.However, after listening to this book, I came away feeling like the author got too close to his subject.He seemed to have no problem with the many immoral, dishonest and completely wrong things that this man has done.Art Williams is an unfortunate man - intelligent, but given almost no opportunity for an honest, successful life.A man who did what he had to do to get ahead and support his child and whatever women happened to be around.But the author seems to have no problem with what Art did and has scathing criticism for the U.S. penal system.What about all of the people that he hurt, the nameless individuals who don't get much say in this book?A little sympathy for them might be a good idea once in a while.
One of the best true crime books I've ever read.
Jason Kersten knows how to write. Regardless of what you think about Art Williams Jr. as a person, Kersten has spun a highly entertaining tale full of fascinating characters, events, and subject matter. It's relatively rare that I completely lose myself in a book and think during the day "I can't wait to get home and read some more of this." The Art of Making Money was one of the books that made me feel that way. It's a page turner for sure
As a connoisseur of non-fiction books about professional thieves, I think that one of common flaws writers make when working in this genre is focusing too much on the court process. I've read books where literally the last half of it describes what happens after the criminal gets caught and is about all the courtroom minutia leading up to their sentence. Kersten didn't fall into this trap, probably because the story of counterfeit money and Art Williams Jr. is genuinely interesting and meaty enough to make a whole book out of without resorting to that.
Another thing Kersten did right was not focusing too much on the police that brought Art down. In most true crime books about thieves there are entire chapters about the detectives assigned to the case and who they are, sometimes you'd almost think the book was about the police officers. Not so here, instead of falsely building up a police hero, Kersten instead talks about Art and the mistakes he made himself which led to his own capture.
And mistakes he did make! While a clever and skilled counterfeiter, Art lacked the maturity, caution, and common sense which are so necessary for long term success in that craft. Just to mention one thing, without giving too much away, at one point Art gets arrested for counterfeiting and is extremely lucky to avoid a lengthy prison sentence on a technicality. At this point he knows the Secret Service is watching his every move. A sane person would probably go into another line of work at this point, but what does Art do? Resumes counterfeiting of course. The events leading up to his second counterfeiting arrest were a complete comedy of errors that left me shocked at the stupidity of Art and the people around him. The book is worth reading for the ending chapters alone, to laugh at the sheer foolishness that Art and his Dad exhibit. This isn't how a "master" operates of course, so the title of the book is misleading, but if Art was truly a mastermind criminal we wouldn't be getting to read this great book.
And it is a great book, totally enthralling and fun to read. Jason Kersten did an excellent job and I'll definitely be looking for any more books by him.
my husband could not put it down
It was a gift for my husband who is a printer. He has a 1900 printing press and a few years ago was investigated by the Secret Service. Someone thought he was printing counterfeit bills in his basement! Seriously, with a 1900 press? It really made his day (...year... life).He really enjoyed this book.
Fascinating, though a little too biographical
As crimes go, counterfeiting is both glamorous and relatively victimless. So it comes as no surprise that a counterfeiter makes a great hero for this roller-coaster-ride of a biography. It's rags to riches and back again, several times over, with lots of family drama thrown in.
The most interesting part is the story of the counterfeiting itself: how they defeated the various security measures of the currency, how they manufactured it, how they sold it, how they passed it. Understandably, the book gets a little thin on details at some points, though on others the "secrets" are presented quite straightforwardly.
The biographical parts are valuable to, partly to understand what kind of environment can create criminal behavior, and partly because without it, the characters and many of the connections our hero calls on at various times would be impossible to follow. Family and relationship problems also contribute to many of the worst errors the characters make in executing their criminal ventures, so they contribute to lessons learned--the foremost of which seemed to be that criminals, by virtue of being either inclined to or forced into a life of crime (or both), are not cautious enough or disciplined enough to be good at it.
Overall, this book was longer than it really needed to be. Much of the personal story could have been cut without losing anything crucial, and that would have gotten it five stars.
A Story Too Strange To Be Fiction
Art Williams' story is a thrilling one. The book takes the reader through Art's life in the Bridgeport projects of Chicago to Alaska, where his estranged father lives.
The book glorifies Williams, ignoring many of the moral quandaries presented by his crimes. Still, it's a fun read, and the counterfeiting techniques Art used are detailed and fascinating.
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