In 1908, a series of newspaper reports brought scandal and disgrace to well-known New York social and civic icon Henry Sanger Snow, who had turned to embezzlement in the wake of the Great Panic stock market crash of 1907.
Rather than surrender to the police, Snow abandoned his wife, children, and even his identity, fleeing to Caracas, Venezuela, just days before fear of plague closed the port. It was the beginning of thirty-seven years of duplicity and deceit.
En route to Venezuela, Snow assumed the name of Clark, claiming to represent wealthy northeastern US businessmen seeking Venezuelan investments. In a country seething with rumors of revolution, foreign investors were hard to find, so Clark was viewed with suspicion.
Clark meddled at will in Venezuelan politics. He befriended US State Department officials, finagling an appointment as deputy consul. He conspired with revolutionaries, engineered the escape of two enemies of the state, and palled around with the dictator known as the Tyrant of the Andes. And he never got caught.
Alerted to Clark's story by the impostor's grandson, Robert Brandt's in-depth investigation into State Department, military, and journalist records reveals the history of the twentieth century's greatest impostor, the man Brandt calls The Chameleon.