The Con Job is a Leverage novel, written by Matt Forbeck. Published by Berkeley and released on December 31, 2012, it is available in paperback, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, and Google Play eBook formats. It can also be purchased through the IndieBound.org website.
Book Description[]
When a disreputable dealer starts swindling aged and ailing comic-book creators out of their wealth—and their high-valued comics and artwork—the daughter of one victim comes to ex-insurance investigator Nathan Ford and his team of counter-crooks for help.
Their scheme: run a con at the Comic-Con International, where the crook intends to sell the goods. But there's more going on than simple theft. An arson plot is in motion that will not only destroy countless rare collectibles, but may end up costing lives.
With time short, the team must take down a ruthless mark whose true motives have yet to be revealed…[1]
The Client[]
- Simon Curtiss, a retired comics artist, and his daughter Susan.
The Mark[]
- Lorenzo Patronus
Locations[]
- Boston, Massachusetts
- San Diego, California
- San Diego Convention Center
- Horton Grand Hotel
- Manchester Grand Hyatt
The Con[]
The team arrives in San Diego and tricks a hotel manager into giving them a suite by pretending to be working for Christian Bale. They set up there, and scout out the convention. They discover that not only is Patronus a con man, he's also an amateur comics artist, who desperately wants to get a career as a real one. They commandeer a booth and have Eliot pose as British comics writer Warren Ellis, with Sophie as Jess Drew, an agent attached to the fake publishing company they claim to be starting. Patronus meets Sophie the next day for lunch, and Nate comes along as Jeff Mace, the attorney to draw up the contract with Patronus. Nate talks him into buying shares in the nonexistent publisher, and writes up a contract for him to sign the following morning.
Meanwhile, Hardison discovers that a Japanese businessman named Daichi Kanabe is bankrolling Patronus's auction, and owns a lot of currently low-value real estate in Anaheim. Hardison exposes Daichi's ownership of a hentai (pornographic manga) website, which gets his attention. That evening, Hardison and Parker go to an exclusive party at the Hyatt hotel with the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. At the party, Cha0s invites Hardison to a private tabletop game session with Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day, several floors below. When they get there, it's revealed that Cha0s led Hardison into a trap by Kanabe, who is not happy with him. Cha0s jams Hardison's earbud and cell signal with a wireless jammer, and leaves before Kanabe's men start beating up Hardison.
The next morning, the day of the auction, nobody realizes Hardison is missing at first. Nate and Sophie go to meet with Patronus and have him sign away millions of dollars to them. Meanwhile, Parker and Eliot go to the Hyatt and, posing as FBI agents, comb through their security footage until they see Hardison getting in the elevator with Cha0s. They track down Cha0s, who had earlier given Parker his phone number, and Eliot beats him in a LARP battle. The four of them interrogate Cha0s, and notice he bought a lot of original artwork from Patronus's booth, which Sophie had noticed was full of forgeries. They realize that Patronus intends to sell forgeries in the auction, but destroy them before they can be authenticated, also collecting the insurance money. He then plans to sell the real ones to private buyers, in effect getting paid triple. They take Cha0s's cell signal jammer and push him off a pier into the water, leaving him there.
Nate and Sophie attend the auction while Parker and Eliot search for Hardison. Parker gets an idea, but it needs costumes to work. She gives a couple a thousand dollars each for their Stormtrooper and Slave Leia costumes, which she and Eliot change into. Following Kanabe's thugs, who have been transporting boxes of artwork to the parking garage, they sneak in and pretend to be a drunk couple, getting closer to the thugs loading two vans. One of them comes up to Eliot and calls him out for being a "fake fan", to which Eliot hits him in the face with the helmet and starts beating up all the other guards. In the fight, Eliot gets shot in the shoulder by the last thug standing, and Parker finds Hardison bound and gagged inside one of the vans. She fights the gunman, and Eliot helps knock him out, despite his blood loss. Parker rushes to free Hardison, but he warns her to look at the back of the van, which is filled with dynamite hooked up to a cell phone trigger. They realize Kanabe intends to blow up part of the convention center to ensure next year's convention will be held in Anaheim, making his real estate shoot up in value. Sophie talks Patronus into giving her his phone while he runs the auction, and he gives her a number supposedly from a famous artist, Jim Lee. She realizes the number is to the cell phone detonator, and Parker uses the cell signal jammer to block Kanabe from calling if he finds out Patronus didn't. They take Eliot to a vet friend of Sophie's, who doesn't have to report gunshots, unlike a hospital.
After the auction, Patronus is walking to the garage with the money while thinking about how he plans to betray Kanabe. Comics journalist Rich Johnston comes up and asks him questions, getting him riled up when he reminds Patronus that he was the reporter who exposed his previous forgery. Patronus arrives at the dynamite van to find two thugs bound and gagged in the front seats. As he leaves them to their fate, a SWAT team arrives, called by Leverage to deal with the bomb, and arrests Patronus as a suspect.
Meanwhile, Kanabe is thinking about how he plans to betray Patronus, framing him for the bombing and killing him in one swoop. He plans to head back to Japan before anything can be traced back to him. Sophie, posing as his valet, pickpockets his wallet and passport, tossing them into the car while Nate distracts Kanabe by announcing he knows he kidnapped Hardison and was behind the bomb plot. He tells Kanabe to call Patronus if he doesn't believe Nate that Patronus confessed. Kanabe calls Patronus's phone, which was located in his car, hooked up to some dynamite. His car blows up, along with his passport and wallet, leaving him stranded and under suspicion by the police.
Other Characters[]
- Colin "Chaos" Mason
- Daichi Kanabe
- Stan Lee
- Rich Johnston
Aliases[]
- Hardison: Carl Lucas
- Parker: Diana Prince, Special Agent Hagen
- Eliot: Warren Ellis
- Sophie: Jessica Drew
- Nate: Jeffrey Mace, Mr. Canyon
Trivia[]
- All of the crew's new aliases except Eliot's are comic book characters. Warren Ellis is a real-world comics artist.