Love is Criminal

This book was my weekend entertainment. It forced me to consider the advantages of being a crook, especially a crook who counterfeits C-notes.

There is a downside to contravening Federal US statutes, which includes being pursued by the Secret Service. Did you know that the Secret Service was originally charged with finding and bringing counterfeiters to justice? Only when Mr Roosevelt succeeded Mr McKinley did the Secret Service begin to protect US Presidents from nutters who would kill them.

The upside of counterfeiting is the women. The story of Art Williams[link] is all about women, how they fell in love with him, how they bore his children, how his mother went insane, and how they all helped him in his criminal life. This isn't some fictional tale detached from reality; the truth is that women found this guy attractive to the point where they'd ditch their families for him, break the law for him, and lie to the Secret Service for him.

I wonder: How bad does a Bad Boy have to be before women say no? Is there any point beyond which every woman holds up her hand and says Whoa buddy, this is going too far? (Sex crimes aside, of course.)

There is no conclusion to be drawn, other than love (or its blue-collar cousin, attraction) can conquer even the penal code. But the pervasive attraction of the Bad Boy leads me to believe there's some evolutionary advantage to taking on authority. Either that or bricks of $100 notes to be used for shopping expeditions are impossible to resist.




The Art of Making Money by Jason Kersten. ISBN 978-1-592-40446-9

Jason Kersten's homepage [link]