Who can turn away from a chance to observe the behavior patterns of petty thieves, rogue confidence men and corrupt public officials? Not this reader! Malfeasance lurks in relationships, workplaces, governments and among crowds in public places, and you don't have to be morbidly curious to want to read all about it. Wild imposters in real life and in fiction are older than the Bible. But, in this age of rampant disinformation and social media personas the struggle to sort fact from fiction is just part of daily life. Have a look at our fiction and non-fiction selection of wild and salacious tales of methodical deceptions, small-time grifters and ruinous schemers. Want to add your favorite crime to this list of suggestions? We'd love to hear it! Drop us a line.
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Bag man : the wild crimes, audacious cover-up, & spectacular downfall of a brazen crook in the White House
by Rachel Maddow Documents the lesser-known scandals surrounding former Vice President Spiro Agnew, describing the massive bribery and extortion ring he operated and the efforts of three federal prosecutors to expose his activities before he could ascend to the presidency. Illustrations. |
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How to kidnap the rich : a novel
by Rahul Raina The son of a tea stall merchant in the Old City of Delhi makes a lucrative living taking university entrance exams for the sons of India’s elite until he is kidnapped along with a client. Original. 40,000 first printing. |
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My friend Anna : the true story of a fake heiress
by Rachel DeLoache Williams Tells the true story of Anna Delvey, a young con artist posing as a German heiress in New York City—as told by the former Vanity Fair photo editor who got seduced by her friendship and then scammed out of more than $62,000. 100,000 first printing. Illustrations. |
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The missing American
by Kwei Quartey Turning private detective when her ambition to be a police officer is dashed, Emma Djan teams up with a first client to search for a man whose disappearance is linked to the email scams and fetish priests of Ghana. |
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Guilty admissions : the bribes, favors, and phonies behind the college cheating scandal
by Nicole Laporte An entertaining exposé on how the other half gets in tells the shockingly true story of the Varsity Blues scandal, and all of the crazy parents, privilege, and con men involved. 50,000 first printing. |
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The king of confidence : a tale of utopian dreamers, frontier schemers, true believers, false prophets, and the murder of an American monarch
by Miles Harvey "In 1843, James Strang vanished from a rural town in New York. Months later he reappeared on the Midwestern frontier and converted to Mormonism. In the wake of the murder of the sect's leader, Joseph Smith, Strang unveiled a letter purportedly from the prophet naming him successor, and persuaded hundreds of fellow converts to follow him to an island in Lake Michigan, where he declared himself a divine king" |
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Confident women : swindlers, grifters, and shapeshifters of the feminine persuasion
by Tori Telfer The acclaimed author of Lady Killers returns with a new collection about notorious female con artists and their outrageous scams, from Jeanne de Saint-Rémy who scammed jewelers in 1700s Paris to Roxie Ann Rice who scammed the NFL in 1975. |
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Amoralman : a true story and other lies
by Derek DelGaudio Conscious of his own rather mind-boggling ability to deceive others professionally, Derek DelGaudio believed that the artifice in his life was always reserved exclusively for the stage. But when irrefutable evidence to the contrary is found in an old journal, Derek is forced to question his ability to see through an illusion, something he trained his whole life to do. Using his youthful notebook entries as a roadmap, DelGaudio embarks on a soulful, often funny, sometimes dark journey through his own past, stopping at the significant signposts that led him into the heart of a world populated by swindlers, con artists and card cheats. As stories are peeled away and deceptions are revealed. |
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Bluff
by Jane Stanton Hitchcock A fallen socialite sets in motion a plan for revenge that begins by intentionally shooting the wrong man at a fancy New York restaurant. By the New York Times best-selling author of Trick of the Eye |
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The talented Miss Farwell : a novel
by Emily Gray Tedrowe A seemingly unassuming and sensible community treasurer uses embezzled funds to finance a spiraling art habit that immerses her in the identity of a wealthy collector and renders her increasingly indebted to her unsuspecting neighbors |
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Veritas : a Harvard professor, a con man, and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife
by Ariel Sabar A star professor at the Harvard Divinity School, announced a blockbuster discovery at a scholarly conference just steps from the Vatican: She had found an ancient fragment of papyrus in which Jesus calls Mary Magdalene "my wife." The discovery made news around the world - if early Christians believed that Jesus was married, it would threaten not just the celibate, all-male priesthood, but the entire the 2,000-year history of the faith. The "Gospel of Jesus's Wife," was both a crowning career achievement and powerful proof for her arguments that there were alternative, and much more inclusive, versions of Christianity from its beginnings. Award-winning journalist Ariel Sabar began to unearth disquieting questions about the papyrus. His globe-spanning investigation would lead to a rural hamlet in inland Florida, where he discovered a college dropout with a prophetess wife, a curious past in Germany, and a tortured relationship with the Catholic Church. The deeper Sabar dug into the mysteries of the "Gospel of Jesus's Wife," the more surreal the story became. |
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Diamond Doris : the true story of the world's most notorious jewel thief
by Doris Payne The culprit and larger-than-life personality behind jewel heists that remained unsolved for years shares her story, describing how a young black woman from West Virginia. |
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Nowhere girl : a memoir of a fugitive childhood
by Cheryl Diamond In this impossible-to-believe true story of self-discovery and triumph, the author, born into a family of outlaws with no proof that she even existed, shares her escape from the only people she had in the world in order to survive. |
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Pretty things
by Janelle Brown "Training her journalist's eye on the glitter and glamour of American burlesque's Greatest Generation, Liz Goldwyn takes readers on an enthralling tour of the original queens of the striptease. Goldwyn's incisive expose is a retrospective of the sights and spectacles of burlesque's golden age--and an intimate look at the women whose sexuality, ambition, and verve brought the cabaret stage to life. Today, as burlesque enters a heady resurgence worldwide--with festivals around the globe, popular books likeBurlesque Fetish and The Burlesque Handbook, and even a School of Burlesque in New York City--Pretty Things offers a unique and exciting look at its formative past and its earliest heroines" |
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The wizard of lies : Bernie Madoff and the death of trust
by Diana B. Henriques Examines the life, career, and notorious multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme of the formerly prominent New York financier, as well as the tragic consequences of his criminal activity |
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The man in the Rockefeller suit : the astonishing rise and spectacular fall of a serial imposter
by Mark Seal The Vanity Fair contributing editor and author of Wildflower traces the 30-year con of Clark Rockefeller, a German-born immigrant who assumed numerous identities to charm his way into exclusive clubs and financial institutions before divorcing a Harvard graduate and kidnapping his own daughter. (true crime). |
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The glass hotel
by Emily St. John Mandel "A captivating novel of money, beauty, white-collar crime, ghosts, and moral compromise in which a woman disappears from a container ship off the coast of Mauritania and a massive Ponzi scheme implodes in New York, dragging countless fortunes with it" |
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The confidence game : why we fall for it... every time
by Maria Konnikova Explores the psyches, motives, and methods of con artists to reveal why they are consistently successful, identifying common hallmarks of cons to share additional insights into the relationship between artists and victims |
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The mark inside : a perfect swindle, a cunning revenge, and a small history of the big con
by Amy Reading A narrative history of con artistry in America documents the early 20th-century efforts of J. Frank Norfleet to track down a gang of confidence men who swindled him out of everything he had, in an account that places con artistry in America against a backdrop of the nation's culture. |
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Hype : how scammers, grifters, and con artists are taking over the internet--and why we're following
by Gabrielle Bluestone The former Vice journalist and Emmy-nominated producer of the Netflix documentary, Fyre, presents a revelatory examination of the con-artists, grifters and scammers of the digital age that outlines recommendations for protecting today’s consumers. 250,000 first printing. |
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A dying millionaire hires private eye Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, and Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in. |
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Catch me if you can : the amazing true story of the youngest and most daring con man in the history of fun and profit
by Frank W. Abagnale A former confidence man and master impostor recounts his crimes, capture, imprisonment, and current career as a highly paid crime consultant, in a new edition of his best-selling, firsthand account of his international exploits. |
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The grift : a novel
by Debra Ginsberg A grifter who uses her talents as a fake psychic to gain the trust of her wealthy clients, Marina Marks suddenly gains the ability to truly see into the future, but after predicting the murder of her lover, she becomes the prime suspect in the crime, desperate to clear her name and uncover the meaning of her visions. |
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Scam me if you can : simple strategies to outsmart today's rip-off artists
by Frank W. Abagnale The author of the best-selling Catch Me If You Can reveals the methods used by today’s most skillful con artists to steal billions from unsuspecting Americans, outlining five essential rules for safeguarding personal finances. |
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Fakers : an insider's guide to cons, hoaxes, and scams
by H. P. Wood A lighthearted, timely introduction to the practice and consequences of scams chronicles some of history's most notorious humbugs, profiles infamous con artists and shares practical tips for recognizing fake news. Simultaneous eBook. |
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Real food fake food : why you don't know what you're eating & what you can do about it
by Larry Olmsted Brings readers into the unregulated food industry, revealing that this shocking deception extends from high-end foods like olive oil, wine and Kobe beef to everyday staples such as coffee, honey, juice and cheese. |
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Billion dollar whale : the man who fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the world
by Bradley Hope Two Pulitzer-finalist Wall Street Journal reporters document the true story of how a young social climber orchestrated one of history's biggest financial heists, exposing the secret nexus of elite wealth, banking, Hollywood and politics. |
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The three classic novels published here in one volume are rich with the crisp prose, subtle characters, and intricate plots that made Dashiell Hammett one of the most admired writers of the twentieth century. A one-time detective and a master of deft understatement, Hammett virtually invented the hard-boiled crime novel. In "THE MALTESE FALCON, Sam Spade, a private eye with his own solitary code of ethics, tangles with a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. "THE THIN MAN introduces Hammett's wittiest creations, Nick and Nora Charles, who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. And in "RED HARVEST, Hammett's anonymous tough-guy detective, the Continental Op, takes on the entire town of Poisonville in a deadly war against corruption. |
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Gone girl
by Gillian Flynn When a woman goes missing on her fifth wedding anniversary, her diary reveals hidden turmoil in her marriage, while her husband, desperate to clear himself of suspicion, realizes that something more disturbing than murder may have occurred |
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The last Mrs. Parrish : a novel
by Liv Constantine A coolly manipulative woman worms her way into the lives of a wealthy golden couple from Connecticut as part of her plot to achieve a privileged life, unveiling dark secrets along the way. |
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The talented Mr. Ripley
by Patricia Highsmith In order to convince his son to come home, Herbert Greenleaf, a rich shipbuilder, sends the suave con man Tom Ripley to Italy, but is unaware of his son's friend's criminal activities. |
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The rat began to gnaw the rope
by C. W. Grafton Gil Henry, a Kentucky lawyer who begins investigating a stock fraud and winds up investigating a murder. When Ruth McClure approaches Gil andasks him to investigate the stock she inherited from her father, he reluctantly agrees, never expecting to be embroiled in scandal, subterfuge, and murder. But the more he digs the deeper the manipulation scheme goes, and it becomes unclear whether Gil will find a way out. In this portrait of pre-WWII America, this exceptional mystery combines fast-paced plotting and a breezy writing style with C.W. Grafton's thorough knowledge of the law. |
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A beautiful crime : a novel
by Christopher Bollen When Nicholas Brink leaves New York City to join Clay Guillory in Italy, he thinks he knows what he's getting into. His more experienced boyfriend has come into a small inheritance from an eccentric bohemian artist: the windfall consists of counterfeit heirlooms as well as a share in a decrepit Venetian palazzo. Clay hopes to use Nick's connection to an antiques dealer to unload the fake silver on a brash, unsuspecting American. Clay's smarts and Nick's charm are the keys to pulling off their scheme. As it turns out, nothing in Venice is as it seems, and more than one life stands in the way of their happiness |