Fortune's Spear

A Forgotten Story of Genius, Fraud, and Finance in the Roaring Twenties

By: Martin Vander Weyer

Narrated by: James Conlan

A richly detailed Edwardian true crime story of an extraordinary fraud, full of parallels to contemporary financial upheavals, from Bernie Madoff to the 2008 global financial crash.

Gerard Lee Bevan was the black sheep of one of London's most respectable banking families. A high-living womanizer and upper-class shyster of almost pantomime proportions, he exploited a glittering range of social connections. After a long run of success in City dealings he perpetrated a massive fraud which ruined both the City Equitable Fire Insurance Company and his stockbroking firm, Ellis & Co. He fled the country and was eventually arrested, tried, and jailed. Based on new research, Martin Vander Weyer tells the story of a fraud of extraordinary proportions, perpetrated by an aristocratic Englishman from a seemingly impeccable background. Exploring exactly how Bevan managed it, he reconstructs in rich Edwardian detail the environment and characters of the day, as well as Bevan's desperate attempt at disguise and flight across Europe. With resonances in today's financial world, from the 2008 crash to the likes of fraudsters such as Bernard Madoff, this compelling true crime tale offers a fascinating glimpse into a bygone financial world.

©2012, 2014 Martin Vander Weyer (P)2013 Audible Inc.

Critic reviews

"Martin Vander Weyer, a British financial journalist, uses the story of Gerard Bevan - a stockbroker, insurance executive and convicted fraudster- to open a window on the pretensions and perfidies of the British upper crust early in the long twilight of its power. The story in 'Fortune's Spear' is not exactly a century-old version of "The Wolf of Wall Street" but will have a familiar ring to followers of today's financial chicaneries." (The Wall Street Journal)

A pleasant way to spend a few hours

I came across this book by accident, and was strangely intrigued by the single extremely-negative review. The blurb sounded interesting to me, and I was curious if it was really so unredeemable bad. Since it's on Audible Plus, there was no risk to giving it a try. Turns out, this is a perfectly good book and just the kind of thing I was looking for at the time.

The author is a finance journalist, and has a different style than you'd expect from a historian or biography writer. It struck me as unusual, but not bad. For example, there are first-person asides more than usual, and the author also includes some hypothetical/imagined scenes, clearly labelled as imagined of course. I can see how some people might find this off-putting.

The underlying story is one that was interesting to me, as someone who loves books about fraud and financial crime for some reason. If you read British fiction from the era (20s-30s) there are tons of references to stock market frauds and schemes, and I had always wondered what the real story was. E.g., in Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, someone I forget had lost money in a West Australian gold mine, and in Edgar Wallace's The Just Men of Cordova one of the main characters is a pusher of amalgamation schemes that I felt sure had to be based in part on reality. This book is about one such case, and covers a bunch of others in passing—now I want a book about Horatio Bottomley! The case of Bevan in this book is fairly straightforward by modern standards, more of a Worldcom than an Enron. But I enjoyed it.

The narrator is fine, not distracting, but a British narrator would have fit better. In spite of the Dutch-sounding name, the author definitely writes like an Englishman, and an English reader might have added flair.

Overall, a recommended listen if you like this kind of thing, and definitely worth trying since it's on Audible Plus.

REALLY AWFUL

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

If the subject matter was even remotely interesting. Gerard Bevan was a boring one-dimensional person. No wonder it is "a forgotten story..."!

What was most disappointing about Martin Vander Weyer’s story?

It's way too long and contains too much boring minutiae.

Would you listen to another book narrated by James Conlan?

If the book itself was worth listening to.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Not really.

Any additional comments?

I spent several hours trying to figure out why this book was even written. Finally I had to put myself out of my misery and just stop listening to it. To go on was like plunging a rusty fork in my eye! I see now why no one had rated or reviewed it on either Audible or Amazon. The only redeeming thing is if you suffer from insomnia. It WILL definitely put you to sleep!