The Big Con

David Maurer, a linguistics professor, was drawn to the underground by its lingo, but he stuck around to lovingly describe an entire subterranean culture of grifters, marks, and intricately constructed con games in this 1940 classic (the source for, among other things, The Sting). The beauty of the con is that it depends on the greed of the sucker, making it a victimless crime of sorts, and in Maurer's hands the con economy, with its own traditions, status, rationality, and honor, comes to mirror the legitimate one. And the lingo? The glossary alone ("punch the guff," "sew a man up") is a delight.