chasing mr. ripley
on conmen, emotional fraud, collective trust and the eternal question of why liars lie
Back when I lived in Toronto, there was a conman who worked my downtown neighbourhood. Almost everyone I knew had been taken in by him at some point, including me. I remember him vividly. He was handsome and clean cut, a black man in his mid-forties. He wore a dark pressed suit, an overcoat and dress shoes and spoke with an elegant continental French ac…