
The Confidence Men: How Two Prisoners of War Engineered the Most Remarkable Escape in History (Hardback)
Margalit Fox (author)- 5+ in stock

Secret codes, buried clues and Ouija boards take centre stage in this fascinating true story of young British officers who engineered their escape from a Turkish POW camp during the First World War.
Imprisoned in a remote Turkish POW camp during the First World War, two British officers, Harry Jones and Cedric Hill, cunningly join forces.
To stave off boredom, Jones makes a handmade Ouija board and holds fake seances for fellow prisoners. One day, an Ottoman official approaches him with a query: could Jones contact the spirits to find a vast treasure rumoured to be buried nearby?
Jones, a lawyer, and Hill, a magician, use the Ouija board - and their keen understanding of the psychology of deception-to build a trap for their captors that will lead them to freedom.
The Confidence Men is a nonfiction thriller featuring strategy, mortal danger and even high farce - and chronicles a profound but unlikely friendship.
Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
ISBN: 9781788162715
Number of pages: 352
Weight: 468 g
Dimensions: 222 x 144 x 33 mm
Edition: Main
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Fox, a former senior obituary writer for The New York Times and the author of three previous books, unspools Jones and Hill's delightfully elaborate scheme in nail-biting episodes that advance like a narrative Rube Goldberg machine, gradually leading from Yozgad to freedom by way of secret codes, a hidden camera, buried clues, fake suicides and a lot of ingenious mumbo jumbo. At moments, The Confidence Men has the high gloss of a story polished through years of telling and retelling.' - The New York Times
'The Confidence Men couldn't have come along at a better time.This story of two unlikely con artists - young British officers who use a Ouija board to escape from a Turkish prisoner-of-war camp - is a true delight, guaranteed to lift the spirits of anyone eager to forget today's realities and lose oneself in a beautifully written tale of an exciting and deeply moving real-life caper.' - Lynne Olson, author of Madame Fourcade's Secret War
'Margalit Fox is one of the premier narrative storytellers we have today, and The Confidence Men is a wonderfully entertaining brew of history, thrills, and ingenuity, one that highlights the rare occasion when con artistry is employed for the greater public good.' - Sarah Weinman, author of The Real Lolita and editor of Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit & Obsession
Praise for Conan Doyle for the Defence:
'Like a good murder mystery, Conan Doyle for the Defence is a fast-paced read that twists and turns with the panache of a Holmes short story.' - Paula Byrne, The Times
'This is a first-class book: pacy, insightful and lucid' - James McConnachie, The Sunday Times
'lucid and engaging' - Allan Massie, Scotsman
'[Fox] has researched her fascinating, fast-paced story with impressive acuity, sketching an informative portrait of the Edwardian mindset.' - Mail on Sunday
'An engrossing book' - Nick Rennison, Daily Mail
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“Derren Brown meets the Great Escape (WWI redux)”
Two men escape a Turkish prisoner of war camp by means of a Ouija board... It's the sort of idea that I'd be sold on in fiction, but this particular story requires no suspension of disbelief from the reader,... More
“Well done!”
WW1, military-history, historical-places-events, historical-research, history-and-culture, Turkey, prisoners-of-war, nonfiction, POW*****
Incredible and inspiring.
Existing in horrible conditions after having been...
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