Liar’s Ball

“Vicky Ward has done it again. She has taken a subject and a cast of characters, many of whom we would not invite to dinner, and woven a page-turning, compelling tale. She transforms real estate players, who to most of us are stick figures, into pulsating characters. Yes, they are greedy. But they also can be visionary, and vulnerable, and damn interesting.” —Ken Auletta, The New Yorker

The Liar’s Ball (Wiley; October 22, 2014) is the shocking exposé of how brilliant and audacious real estate tycoons lie, cheat, bluff, and bully their way into some of the world’s biggest deals. It is also the story of the iconic building so many of them chased like it was a glass and steel Holy Grail, and the extraordinarily charming yet crude hustler who grabbed that prize … and then let it slip through his fingers in a family drama that makes Shakespeare’s King Lear look like Father of the Year.

In over 200 interviews, Vicky Ward got a rare look into the world of these vain and powerful men chasing their profits and schemes and dreams. They are brilliant, but they are also careless, unregulated, and dangerous. In this crowd, Donald J. Trump looks like a Boy Scout (and don’t worry, he’s not). At the center of this tale is Harry Macklowe, who bootstrapped his way to a billion-dollar empire with guile, charm, vision, and plenty of bluster … and came within days of going bust as his wife and son tried to wrest control of it away from him. It is a gripping drama that reads like a thriller.

In The Liar’s Ball: The Extraordinary Saga of How One Building Broke the World’s Toughest Tycoons, New York Times bestselling author Vicky Ward rips back the curtain on this world to examine the soaring egos and boundless hunger of these buccaneers, men who might swap billion-dollar buildings over a round of golf and or draw up a deal on a cocktail napkin.

Welcome to The Liar’s Ball. It’s rough, it’s vulgar, and it’s riveting.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vicky Ward is an investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Devil’s Casino. A former contributing editor to Vanity Fair for 11 years, her work has appeared in the Financial Times, the Times (London), The New York Times, and the Daily Telegraph. She lives in New York.