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Sunday 8 April 2012

Wampum Nation by John Moynihan

BUY-UK
BUY-US

This is an entertaining story about the audacity of an immigration lawyer and the stupidity of those in authority blinded by their own greed and selfishness.

I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Bill Fletcher is divorced and bored with his mundane job as an immigration lawyer.  What better way to liven things up than to start up an Indian tribe on Martha’s Vineyard.  Bill was probably wasted as a lawyer – his gift of the gab would have made him a successful salesman.  He manages to convince the assistant at New World Genealogy to give him a credible ‘Indian’ ancestry, which is enough to persuade the Bureau of Indian Affairs to grant him $10m to establish him and his ‘tribe’.  A fortuitous encounter with Carrie, a young and innovative tourist shop owner not only provides him with a love interest, but an aide to help swell his profits from his audacious plan.  Unphased by the anger of the resident – and real – Indians, the Fluevogs - he boldly hacks through red tape, always staying just inside the limits of the law, to profit substantially from his endeavour.

There is no doubt that Bill Fletcher is an unscrupulous fraudster, but you can’t help admire his confidence in his plan and although you keep thinking, he’s bound to come a cropper – surely he must - there is a small part of you that wants him and Carrie to pull this off just to get the better of those selfish, egotistic and self-centred officials, who can be oh-so-easily led into temptation.

There’s a nice little diversion provided by Father Mulcahey and Margaret, one of his parishioners with whom he gets quite – cough, cough – close, and Carl, the somewhat dim and unimaginative Fluevog’s leader was an excellent contrast to the scheming and, frankly rather canny, Bill Fletcher.

It was an excellent story – funny, clever, entertaining and absorbing.  John Moynihan has an easy but engaging style and manages to give credence to an outlandish scheme.

Highly recommended.

I received a complimentary copy of this book in order to review it.

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