The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: the astonishing rise and spectacular fall of a serial imposter. - Mark Seal

[Jane B]

This book is an interesting look at the multiple personas of one Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter who at age 17 arrived in the USA from Germany on a student visa posing as an exchange student ready to make a new life for himself. This was 1978 and for over 30 years he managed to dupe those he came into contact with into believing he was; - a student at Wisconsin University, Christopher Kenneth Gerhart, in San Marino California, a member of the British Royal family, Christoper Mountbatten Chichester and as Christopher Crowe in Conneticut where he managed to talk his way into a couple of high paying jobs on Wall Street. In 1988 as the police came sniffing around asking questions about the disappearance of his San Marino landlady's son and wife, he vanished only to be reborn in Manhatten in 1992 as Clarke Rockefeller complete with prep school accent and the right kind of clothes. As Clarke Rockefeller he managed to ingratiate his way into the upper eschelons of east coast society with a fake art collection, exclusive club memberships and in 1994 a wife who earned a 7 figure salary who unbeknownst to her was funding his lifestyle.

It all came undone for Chip Smith as he was known when he was arrested in 2007 for the kidnap of his beloved daughter.

The book is a page turner and is just a surface look at the lives of this con man. It doesn't pretend to take you into the psychological reasons behind his life of deception or why the people he came into contact with (especially his wife, of 13 years, a high flying Harvard business graduate) were so willing to believe in him and his stories. As P.T. Barnham said, "There's a sucker born every minute." and he sure knew how to pick them.