Blind Greed

Read Time: 5 Minutes

They say crime doesn’t pay. In Lawrence Hartman’s case, it paid very well for a while, until the authorities caught up. Hartman narrates his own story from being accepted into Columbia Law School, then through a whirlwind of shady business deals that raked in boatloads of cash, to eventually catching the attention of the US Department of Justice and many other three-letter-acronym government departments best avoided.

From frequent border hopping between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, including fake passports and bribes, Hartman’s journey is one that eventually landed him in the notorious El Chipote prison.

Right away, the self-narration sets the right tone. This is not a cool, distant recollection narrated by a third party. It is energetic and confident and often a breathless retelling of narrow escapes. He has that unmistakable New York delivery (including my personal favourite where “huge” turns into “yuuuge”) and it gives the whole thing a sense of personality that a hired narrator might have sanded down. You are never in doubt that this is his version of events, told with enthusiasm and a clear love of storytelling.

Not having heard anything about Hartman’s case before, I only had the broad strokes to go on. Disgraced lawyer, offshore money, eventual prison, but no real understanding of the finer points or much of an understanding of the scams that were being pulled. Between the explanations by Hartman and a few web searches where I found a DOJ press release which helped fill in the details for me.

The early chapters move quickly, from Columbia Law School and the realisation that he hates being a lawyer, through early internet ventures including an online casino and sportsbook that was one of the first-to-market at the time which helped secure a lot of cash.

These sections are told with the confidence of someone who still believes, at least in retrospect, that success was inevitable. When the money starts flowing and the lifestyle ramps up, Vegas excess, gambling, sex, drugs, it is all described with obvious relish.

That lifestyle is easy to envy while listening, but also oddly exhausting to imagine living. Private jets, constant travel, Zurich trips to open Swiss bank accounts with wife and baby in tow, sneaking across borders in the dead of night. It sounds like a blast, and also like something that would burn most people out in short order.

Rather than just one long brag, the story is a unique glimpse behind the curtain at how market manipulation works. Hartman often frames himself as an entrepreneur or a kind of offshore venture capitalist, building companies, innovating technology, finding money wherever he can.

Listening without context, it can feel mostly legitimate. Knowing what he was actually convicted of adds a different layer. You start to notice how often the focus is on raising money rather than building value, and how quick exits and share sales follow bursts of excitement.

To his credit, he does not pretend the ride ends well, even while having more luck than a single person possibly deserves. The latter part of the book, covering his time as a fugitive and eventual imprisonment in Nicaragua, has a very different energy.

The bravado drains away and is replaced by fear, waiting, and a kind of stunned disbelief that the luck has finally run out. His description of surviving El Chipote is grim, stripped of glamour, and grounded in the reality that there are very few good options once the door closes. I’ve since researched El Chipote prison, and wow… that place is awful.

One way I judge how much I am enjoying an audiobook is embarrassingly simple. If I am on the exercise bike, does listening make exercising feel like a chore or a reward. With Blind Greed, I found myself eating up the miles, often doing twenty percent more distance without really noticing. That alone says a lot about how compulsively listenable this is.

There is, of course, the question of truth. How much of this lines up with reality, and how much is memory and self-justification. With only one side of the story, it is hard to say.

Presented this way, in his own voice and his pacing, I suspect he could talk a jury into just about anything. That does not mean he is right, but it does mean Hartman is extremely convincing. Heck, I’d probably have voted to acquit if I was on the jury and this is what I had to go on!

The narration is a little rough around the edges when compared with professional narration. Mostly small things that would have otherwise been picked up, but I think this one benefits from Hartman telling his own story. A few background noises, a retake left in here or there. Occasionally he pulls away from the mic at the end of a sentence.

No deal-breakers, but noticeable enough times to mention. That roughness though gives you the impression are being talked to directly, not presented with something overly polished.

Blind Greed is not subtle, and yes, all from Hartman’s side of the story. But it is fast, engaging, and very hard to turn off. Hartman narrating his own story delivers energy, momentum, and personality in spades. I am genuinely curious to continue the story in the follow up and see how he handles what comes next, especially once the narrative control slips further out of his hands.

Overall, Blind Greed is an outrageously entertaining true crime memoir about success, excess, and the many ways greed keeps you going long past the warning signs.

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