The Charming Predator, Lee Mackenzie
The Charming Predator, Lee Mackenzie
List: $16.95 | Sale: $12.21
Club: $8.47

The Charming Predator
The True Story of How I Fell in Love with and Married a Sociopathic Fraud

Author: Lee Mackenzie

Narrator: Lee Mackenzie

Unabridged: 7 hr 3 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/31/2023


Synopsis

She fell in love with him, they married and then she found out who he was: a conman who was determined to destroy her. 

     The instant bestselling story of Lee Mackenzie, who was a capable and confident young woman, studying broadcast journalism and honing her skills of observation and objectivity. She was also a little unworldly, the product of a small, rural Western Canadian community where doors were never locked and life was simple and direct. On a backpacking trip in the UK, she met the man who would become her husband. A man who everyone agreed was one of the most intelligent, charming people they had ever met. Easy to like, easy to believe. Easy to love. A man without mercy who shattered her emotionally, psychologically and financially.
     Decades later, Kenner Jones is at large today, having committed crimes around the world under a series of fake names and personas. He has been described—by a seasoned US immigration officer—as "the best conman I have ever encountered."
     No one got closer to Kenner Jones than Lee Mackenzie. In The Charming Predator, he is unmasked for the first time.

About The Author

RACHEL JOYCE is the author of the novels The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Perfect, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, The Music Shop, and Miss Benson's Beetle, as well as the digital short story A Faraway Smell of Lemon and a story collection, A Snow Garden & Other Stories. Her books have been translated into thirty-six languages and two are in development for film. Harold Fry was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize and longlisted for the Booker Prize. Joyce was named the Specsavers National Book Awards "New Writer of the Year" in 2012 and shortlisted for "UK Author of the Year" in 2014. Joyce has also written more than thirty original afternoon plays and adaptions of the classics for BBC Radio 4, including all the Brontë novels. She moved to writing after a long career as an actor, performing leading roles for the RSC, the National Theatre, and Cheek by Jowl. She lives with her family in Gloucestershire.


Reviews

The Charming Predator is an addicting read for anyone who loves true crime. Lately I have been in a reading slump (probably from all of those school textbooks I'm devouring...) and most of the books I should love I haven't been able to connect with. Buuuuut, this book instantly hooked me during this......more

Goodreads review by Louise

A true crime story. Lee MacKenzie falls in love with charming Welshman Kenner Jones. She has been a capable and confident young woman. But life in rural Western Canada made her a little unworldly. It's on a backpacking trip in the UK that she meets her future husband. A man who charmed everyone he m......more

I was given an ARC of this ebook by netgalley and Penguin Random House Canada and Doubleday Canada in return for my honest review. This was quite an engaging true story about a slick con man and a young woman who was intelligent and honest but perhaps a bit naive when it came to seeing what she need......more


Quotes

National Bestseller

"Lee Mackenzie had brains, looks and talent. . . . So how could she fall for a con man who very nearly destroyed her and who managed to spread lies and misery across three continents? For every time you've read a tale of the criminal's wife (Ruth Madoff, are you listening?) and wondered 'How did she not know?', this is your answer. . . . How he does it, how she got out of the trap and how he managed to slip out of Canada and spread his cons elsewhere make this true-crime book solid reading." —The Globe and Mail

"This is the surprisingly well-documented story of [Mackenzie's] courtship and marriage, a brief union that cleaned out her bank account and brought the cops to her door. Jones comes across as a troubled man with a pathological need to deceive and betray, perhaps no one more than himself." —Toronto Star

"This is no ordinary true-crime book. . . . It's a riveting memoir." —The Chronicle Herald