Showing titles in Con Artists, Hoaxes & Deceptions

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER SHORTLISTED FOR THE TOM WOLFE PRIZE FOR REPORTAGE A lost tradition of "toad medicine," a global psychedelic movement, and the charismatic doctor who left a trail of destruction in his wake “Entirely mesmerizing. . . . Richly...

From a famous actor and an experienced journalist, a wildly entertaining debunking of cryptocurrency, one of the greatest frauds in history and on course for a spectacular crash.

In 2019, veteran journalist Mark Seal began investigating the suspicious death of music mogul Peter Ikin. Just 32 days before he was found dead in his Paris hotel room, Ikin had married a handsome, debonair Frenchman named Alexandre, who would claim to be entitled to his late husband’s fortune. As Seal dug into the case, he had no idea that tracing the incredible life of Alexandre Despallieres would take him from Paris to London to Beverly Hills, and unspool a web of intricate plots and deceptions.

When the nephew of world-famous director Steven Spielberg turns up at a high school in suburban Virginia, he is untouchable. This 14-year-old - Jonathan Taylor Spielberg - is a star on the rise, filming for his latest movie close by. His new classmates are within touching distance of fame and talk about the new student spreads like wildfire. He promises to hook them up with Hollywood agents and it’s the late 90s, so his invite to the MTV Awards is enticing… But all is not what it seems. The students start to realize they have been unwillingly cast in a twisted real-life drama.

Based on the hit BBC 5Live podcast series, The Trillion Dollar Conman is an audacious tale of an international fraud that is stranger than fiction. In 2009, Notts County FC were on the brink of bankruptcy when they were taken over by a mysterious company supposedly backed by the Bahraini royal...

The Many Lives of Mama Love is the astonishing tale of Lara's descent from middle class soccer mum with an enviable lifestyle, beautiful home and family to an opiate addict and identity thief. Convicted of 32 felonies, her children are taken away and she is placed in a local jail. In this strange and frightening new world, she has to get grips with life behind bars. Lara becomes known in prison as Mama Love. She helps the women around her get to grips with their own troubles, writes letters for them, acts as an advocate, and comforts them in their darkest moments.

"Remarkable Rogues" by Charles Kingston is a chilling account of the lives of notorious criminals in Europe and America. The book delves into the dark world of individuals like Gesina Gottfried, Martha Kupfer, and Mrs. Cassie L. Chadwick, who used deceit, manipulation, and murder to achieve...

In February 2024, Craig Wright began the final act of a decade-long effort to be formally recognised as Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. Success would see him crush his enemies, silence his critics and open the floodgates to billionairedom. Equally as importantly, he would stand alone...

National polls show that Americans are increasingly concerned about vaccine safety and the right to make individual, informed choices together with their healthcare practitioners. Vaccine Epidemic focuses on the searing debate surrounding individual and parental vaccination choice in the United States. Featuring more than 20 experts from the fields of ethics, law, science, medicine, business, and history, Vaccine Epidemic urgently calls for reform.

The Heart I Gave is a deeply personal story about love, trust, hope, heartbreak, and finding the strength to begin again.M. believed she had found a connection that could become a future. What began with daily conversations and growing feelings eventually became a painful journey filled with...

36 Disturbing True Crime Stories of Murder and Deception Three Book Collection: Volumes 16, 17, and 18 of the True Crime Case Histories Series Journey into the darkest corners of the human psyche with thirty-six meticulously researched accounts of unspeakable crimes that shocked communities and...

Peter Foster is a career conman who charmed his way into the lives of the rich and famous around the world. Justin Armsden is the reporter who’s been on his tail for 25 years. In King Of Sting, the two play cat and mouse as Armsden retraces Foster’s merciless series of stings, from Australia’s glittery Gold Coast to London, Fiji and beyond. Armsden reveals how Foster swindled more than $100 million from hopeful victims while earning the trust of Muhammad Ali, British first lady Cherie Blair, and singer-songwriter Samantha Fox.

A much-loved mother, teacher and friend steps on a plane for an overseas adventure and is never seen again. When Marion Barter disappeared in 1997, police initially dismissed it as the actions of a divorced mother abandoning her family. In this book, the creators of the addictive global hit...

When comedian Barry Rothbart was growing up in Queens in the 90s, there were two things he knew for sure… his father, Allan, was his best friend and he was also Jon Bon Jovi’s manager. But then everything changed in 1997, when Barry’s dad got arrested and admitted that he actually worked for the Italian mafia, running the largest bookmaking operation in the United States.

The uproarious, bestselling true story of the world's most sought-after con man, immortalized by Leonardo DiCaprio in DreamWorks' feature film of the same name, from the author of Scam Me If You Can. Frank W. Abagnale, alias Frank Williams, Robert Conrad, Frank Adams, and Robert Monjo, was...

Mobster Al "Scarface" Capone, "Machine Gun" Kelly, Robert Stroud, aka the Birdman: only the most violent, desperate criminals went to Alcatraz Island, called "The Rock" and known for its harsh conditions. This gripping true crime classic, originally written in 1963 and newly reissued, tells the story of life on The Rock and of 14 ingenious escape attempts by the prisoners.

Shortly after John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln, he was tracked down and shot by authorities - that's what was officially reported, anyway. Lawyer Finis L. Bates, however, decided to set the record straight when he reported that in 1870 his acquaintance "John St. Helen" revealed himself to be none other than Booth living under an alter ego. Bates' version of the story is this: a hushed-up escape led Booth to 38 years of secret identities and an eventual suicide in an Oklahoma hotel. In this historical text, Bates unpacks the surprising truth about this infamous assassin.

Something unimaginable occurred from 1764 to 1767 in the remote highlands of south-central France. For three years, a real-life monster, or monsters, ravaged the region, slaughtering by some accounts more than 100 people, mostly women and children, and inflicting severe injuries upon many others.

P. T. Barnum, best known for his own use of hoaxes in his popular Barnum & Bailey Circus, found that the use of hoaxes was acceptable when the audience was getting the entertainment they paid for. When it came to religious hoaxes, fraud, and swindling, Barnum was avidly against it. He even went so far as to offer $500 to any medium who could prove that they actually could reach the dead. In this exposé of humbugs and the scams they perpetuate, he goes after religious quacks, witches and sorcerers, and other forms of frauds in all walks of life. 

As a premier antiques dealer in Savannah, Jim Williams had it all: style, culture, charisma, and sophistication. But three decades of hard work came crashing down the night he shot Danny Hansford, his wild young lover. Jim Williams stood trial four times over the next decade for premeditated murder.  While Clint Eastwood's movie - starring Kevin Spacey and Jude Law - and the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt portrayed the natives of Savannah as remarkably decadent, exotic characters, they missed the surprising dark side of Jim Williams himself.