Showing results for "Un-American" in Con Artists, Hoaxes & Deceptions

Just before the small-time bootlegger Max Gerlach died, he tried to reveal his secret: he was the inspiration for the mysterious Jay Gatsby. It’s a nice story, but was he telling the truth? Veteran reporter Joe Nocera and producer Poppy Damon investigate this century-old literary mystery and uncover untold secrets about the Great American Novel.

At 5:02 p.m. on June 5, 1986, an emergency call came into the local sheriff’s office in the small town of Auburn, Washington State. A distressed housewife, Stella Nickell, said her husband, Bruce, was having a seizure. Officers rushed to the Nickells' mobile home to find Stella standing frozen at the door…. Bruce was on the floor fighting for his life.

I Did It is the story of Gina Champion-Cain, the mastermind behind the largest woman-led Ponzi scheme in US history—$400 million. This real-life story includes a multitude of participants, banks, hedge funds, egomaniacs, and small-time crooks, all fueled by greed, stupidity, and a keen desire to look the other way. And even when they were looking in the right direction, all of these people and entities saw nothing.

In this "unflinching and wildly entertaining" investigation of the modern New Age movement in America, a journalist aims to understand how women like Amy Carlson (the leader of Love Has Won) and others become devoutly invested in their beliefs (Talia Lavin, author of Culture Warlords). Today...

“I can’t imagine a more important book.”—Jeff Guinn, New York Times bestselling author An explosive investigation into Word of Faith Fellowship, a secretive evangelical cult whose charismatic female leader is a master of manipulation In 1979, a fiery preacher named Jane Whaley attracted...

From an award-winning New York Times investigative reporter comes a gripping account of one of the most captivating and bizarre tales in the history of the FBI and corporate America. It was one of the FBI's biggest secrets: Mark Whitacre, a senior executive at Archer Daniels Midland--America's...

Don’t Miss the Apple TV+ Docuseries Streaming Now! “This book is as engrossing as anything by Agatha Christie, as unsettling as a novel by Stephen King, and reported with a vigorous empathy that leaves Truman Capote in the dust. Scott Johnson’s courage, his relentless quest for the truth...

“The Real Lolita is a tour de force of literary detective work. Not only does it shed new light on the terrifying true saga that influenced Nabokov’s masterpiece, it restores the forgotten victim to our consciousness.” —David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon Vladimir...

'The Queen is an invaluable work of non-fiction' - David Grann, Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon This is the gripping true tale of a villain who changed American history. In the 1970s, Linda Taylor became a fur-wearing, Cadillac-driving symbol of...

A real-life Talented Mr. Ripley, the unbelievable thirty-year run of a shape-shifting con man.The story of Clark Rockefeller is a stranger-than-fiction twist on the classic American success story of the self-made man-because Clark Rockefeller was totally made up. The career con man who...

From an award-winning New York Times investigative reporter comes a gripping account of one of the most captivating and bizarre tales in the history of the FBI and corporate America. It was one of the FBI's biggest secrets: Mark Whitacre, a senior executive at Archer Daniels Midland--America's...