The Evil That Men Do

By Michael Blair

“Charles Pearson Brandt," Nina said, "was an independent financial advisor who ran a Ponzi scheme in Hudson and the West Island for fifteen years or so. About three years ago, though, he disappeared with his assistant-cum-accomplice-cum-girlfriend and fifty million or more of his clients’ money, although he’d probably scammed half again that amount. Small potatoes, I suppose, compared to the hundreds of millions Bernie Madoff stole, but a whack of money none the less. Brandt’s victims were mostly elderly: widows, widowers and retirees, referred to him by his other clients, who believed he was making them a shitload of money. I guess they’d never heard, or had forgotten, that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is… He left nearly a hundred elderly people, people who trusted him, completely destitute.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Linda Leith Publishing
• Release date: Mar 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781988130408

Michael Blair

Michael Blair’s first novel (If Looks Could Kill, M&S, 2001) was shortlisted for the 1999 Chapters Robertson Davies Prize as well as the 2001 Quebec Writers’ Federation First Book Prize. He published four more novels, including Depth of Field (Dundurn, 2009) and True Believers. He lived in Montreal with his family, and died in 2022.

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