Harvey Metcalfe is an American millionaire who gets his money any way he can. He sets up a bogus North Sea oil company and hires the naïve David Kesler to sell the stock. David finds four major buyers — Stephen, an American professor teaching at Oxford, Robin, an English doctor, James, the son of a British Lord, and Jean-Pierre, a French art dealer. As soon as the four invest $1,000,000, Metcalfe closes the company.

Stephen is visited by the fraud police and finds out what happened. He determines to get his money back. He contacts the other three and they make plans to sting Metcalfe. Jean-Pierre orchestrates a plan to sell Metcalfe a fake Van Gogh. Robin (in the most ridiculous part of the book) gets Metcalfe to think he needs his gall bladder removed and performs a fake operation. Stephen gets Metcalfe to invest a large sum of money to “Oxfort.” Only James has trouble coming up with a plan. He’s distracted by his romance with the beautiful model, Anne Summerton. Of course, Anne turns out to be Metcalfe’s daughter who wants to beat her dad at something. So when Metcalfe gives Anne and James a large check for their wedding, Anne signs it over to Stephen. They get all their money back, including expenses, with only $1.24 not recovered. But then they find out that oil was found and their stocks have shot up higher than ever.

Recommendation: It was entertaining, but ridiculously unbelievable. I figured out the major plot twist about Anne being Metcalfe’s daughter on page 84, so either I'm clever or the book isn't. It was also dated — Jimmy Connors is the new tennis champ. But if you're looking for a mindless read about an amusing sting operation, you might enjoy it.