{"id":9713,"date":"2022-04-27T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9713"},"modified":"2022-04-26T17:53:56","modified_gmt":"2022-04-26T21:53:56","slug":"cover-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9713","title":{"rendered":"Cover Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Like a clever jigsaw puzzle, Susan Rigetti\u2019s new novel, Cover Story<\/em>, about a world-class con artist gives you a lot of pieces. It takes a while for them to start fitting together, allowing the picture to emerge, and it doesn\u2019t snap completely into focus until the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story is told mainly through the diary entries of New York University drop-out Lora Ricci as she embarks on one of her life goals\u2014becoming the editor of an important fashion magazine. Her other goal is to be a famous writer, and she plans to work hard at both. She\u2019s taking the first step, having secured a summer internship at the fashionista watering-hole, Elle<\/em>. Lora\u2019s diary entries are written in the sort of breathless, pep-talky style totally appropriate to who she is, enthusiastic but inexperienced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book leads off not with the diary, but with a short memorandum to the file from Agent Jen\u00e9e Parker in the FBI\u2019s New York field office. It was written in response to a tip from an editor at Elle<\/em> suggesting that one of the magazine\u2019s employees isn\u2019t who she claims to be. Cat Wolff makes an instant impression on everyone, especially Lora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why does someone with Cat\u2019s connections and sophistication\u2014even criminal tendencies\u2014need to cultivate an unsophisticated, if well-meaning, young woman like Lora? There\u2019s no question that Cat has some scheme in mind in which Lora will get the short end of the stick, but what is it? And how badly will she be hurt?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019re also privy to Cat\u2019s multiple exchanges with credit card companies, banks where she\u2019s seeking loans, and venture capitalists she\u2019s trying to entice to fund a fashion project. Most immediately pesky are the hand-written notes from the Plaza\u2019s front desk\u2014at first nicely, then firmly\u2014 requesting payment of her massive bill. You worry that Lora may somehow be stuck with that bill. Cat may look as serene as a duck floating on a pond, but all the while, her feet are paddling furiously out of sight, as the FBI closes in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s certainly something of a relief when Lora finally starts waking up and realizes Cat may not be quite what Lora thinks she is. And that she may not have Lora\u2019s best interests at heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a quick read and highly entertaining, and I suspect the scope of Cat\u2019s scam will take your breath away. It sure did mine!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

California-based author Susan (Fowler) Rigetti was the technology op-ed editor at The New York Times<\/em>, and worked as a software engineer in Silicon Valley\u2014good background for Cat, who boldly harnesses the deceptive potential of the Internet. She came to whistleblower fame (Person of the Year for TIME<\/em> and the Financial Times<\/em>; numerous magazine covers) writing about her experience as a Uber software engineer. The unaddressed sexual harassment, along with management\u2019s chaos-inducing sexism and political oneupsmanship became notorious, leading to serious reexamination of tech industry culture and practices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like a clever jigsaw puzzle, Susan Rigetti\u2019s new novel, Cover Story, about a world-class con artist gives you a lot of pieces. It takes a while for them to start fitting together, allowing the picture to emerge, and it doesn\u2019t … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The ending literally took my breath away! Fantastic read!!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[53,1821,126],"tags":[1985,1980],"class_list":["post-9713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal","category-humor","category-reading-2","tag-cover-story","tag-susan-rigetti"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2wF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9715,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9713\/revisions\/9715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}