Showing titles in Con Artists, Hoaxes & Deceptions

This audio original from the acclaimed author of American Sherlock, and the host of multiple true-crime podcasts, including Wicked Words, tells the fascinating story of the supernatural, and the club that united some of the world's most illustrious thinkers. For more than a century, some of the...

Texas millionaire Steven Beard, Jr. fell hard for Celeste Martinez, a waitress less than half his age. She served the seventy year old widow his nightly cocktail—along with sexual favors—at a country club in Austin. After they married, Steven gave her cars, homes, jewelry, and designer clothes. But Celeste wanted more. Claiming she had depression, Celeste checked into a psychiatric facility, where she met and seduced fellow patient Tracey Tarlton. Celeste soon convinced Tracey that the only way they could be together would be to kill Steve.

In 1911 two British heiresses, Claire and Dora Williamson, read a brochure about a revolutionary fasting treatment that promised a lifetime of good health. The sanatorium in the village of Olalla, west of Seattle, was surrounded by a beautiful forest, sparkling waters and fresh air. The sisters agreed it sounded perfect and exactly the restorative holiday they needed. But within a month of arriving, under the supervision of Doctor Linda Burfield Hazzard, Claire and Dora began to realise the frightening truth – they were not patients but prisoners at the isolated sanitorium.

It takes just seconds for someone to die. Sometimes questions remain: was it an accident, suicide, or something more sinister?

The dark web is the internet's evil twin, where anything can be bought and sold. Drugs, weapons, and hackers-for-hire are available at the touch of a button. Most who visit merely look around, happy to satisfy their curiosity before leaving, never to return. But some are sucked into the criminal underworld and find themselves doing things they would never have contemplated in the real world—ordering a hit on a love rival or bidding on an auction for a sex slave—like the people in this book.

La Luz del Mundo has been called the world’s largest cult that no one has ever heard of. Sochil Martin grew up inside it. Her harrowing true story to escape and seek justice is an epic that exposes alleged crimes of biblical proportions.

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.

When Lt. Commander Bobby Thompson surfaced in Tampa in 1998, it was as if he had fallen from the sky, providing no hint of his past life. Eleven years later, St. Petersburg Times investigative reporter Jeff Testerman visited the rundown duplex Thompson used as his home and the epicenter of his sixty-thousand-member charity, the US Navy Veterans Association. But something was amiss. Thompson’s charity’s addresses were just maildrops, his members nonexistent, and his past a black hole.

A Pulitzer Prize finalist's bizarre journalistic journey through the world of fringe medicine, filled with leeches, baking soda IVs, and, according to at least one person, zombies. It's no secret that American health care has become too costly and politicized to help everyone. So where do you...

A Hollywood starlet on a smash-hit sitcom enjoys rising fame, unaware that her greatest fan is hell-bent on meeting his crush. A gameshow winner turns to writing books. When one is given a scathing review, he tracks down the reviewer with bloody results. Men keep turning up at a newlywed's home convinced that she has placed a Craigslist ad for a rough fantasy roleplay. Stalkers takes you into the twisted world of cyberstalking, catfishing, rejected suitors, jealous exes, and celebrity stalkers, and the devastating impact their obsessions can have on their victims.

Carolyn Woods lebte glücklich in einem ruhigen Dorf in den Cotswolds, als plötzlich ein attraktiver Fremder in ihr Leben trat. Er stellte sich als Mark Conway vor, und zu ihrer Überraschung war Carolyn schnell von diesem mysteriösen Mann fasziniert. Der reiche Schweizer Bankier (der später gestand, ein Spion zu sein) nahm Carolyn mit in eine aufregende, glamouröse Welt. Einige Dinge jedoch waren seltsam, und sie begann, ihren Liebhaber zu hinterfragen.

Im Jahr 2019 beginnt der erfahrene Journalist Mark Seal, den verdächtigen Tod des Musikmoguls Peter Ikin zu untersuchen. Dieser hatte nur zweiunddreißig Tage vor seinem Tod einen gut aussehenden, eleganten Franzosen namens Alexandre geheiratet, der nun Ansprüche auf das Vermögen seines verstorbenen Mannes geltend machen will. Als Seal sich in den Fall vertieft, führt ihn die Spurensuche nach dem unglaublichen Leben von Alexandre Despallières von Paris über London bis nach Beverly Hills.

By the age of nine, I will have lived in more than a dozen countries, on five continents, under six assumed identities. I’ll know how a document is forged, how to withstand an interrogation, and most important, how to disappear . . . To the young Cheryl Diamond, life felt like one big...

Våren 1987 inkommer ett brev till Sveriges ambassad i London som genast väcker personalens intresse och sympatier. I brevet beskriver ett äldre brittiskt par hur de lurats av en svensk baron, som lovat dem ett arbete som inte existerade i verkligheten. Brevet överlämnas till svensk polis, som åker för att intervjua paret i England. Paret hade kommit i kontakt med baronen, som givit dem arbete på sitt slott i Portugal. De hade blivit lovade en hög lön och ett hem på slottet, och i förberedelse för flytten sålde de sitt hus och sina ägodelar.

"'Om du inte är snäll, så kommer Rottenikken och tar dig!' Hur många olydiga barn från krigstiden är det inte som idag kan minnas detta hot från sina föräldrar? Rottenikken - Rolf Erling Knutsen - är en av de märkligaste personerna i norsk rättshistoria." Knutsen härjade som värst i norska Telemark när landet var under tysk ockupation. Den norska allmänheten lärde känna honom genom sensationellt dramatiska tidningsartiklar, och hans våldsamma rykte användes av nazisterna i skrämselpropagandan mot den norska motståndsrörelsen.

Nordisk Kriminalreportage indeholder en lang række spændende og autentiske politisager fra Sverige, Norge, Finland og Island. Sagerne er skrevet af de politifolk, der var med i opklaringsarbejdet. Sagerne er alle afsluttede, og domsfældelse har fundet sted. Det er hæsblæsende læsning, og ofte overgår virkeligheden fantasien. Læseren kommer med ind bag nogle af de mest dramatiske sager i skandinavisk politihistorie, og får stiftet bekendtskab med det puslespil, det er at finde frem til gerningsmændene.

Right under the noses of neighbors, clients, spouses, children, and friends, a secret society, simply called School—a cult of snared Manhattan professionals—has been led by the charismatic, sociopathic, and dangerous leader Sharon Gans for decades. Spencer Schneider was recruited in the eighties, and he stayed for more than twenty-three years as his life disintegrated, his self-esteem eroded, and he lined the pockets of Gans and her cult.

WINNER OF THE NED KELLY AWARD FOR BEST TRUE CRIME 2023 WINNER OF THE UK TRUE CRIME AWARD FOR BEST INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING 2024 A relentlessly fascinating and often jaw-dropping true story of two American women who unwittingly became Australia's 'Drug Grannies' In 1977, Vera 'Toddie' Hays and...

In 1971, Go Ask Alice reinvented the young adult genre with a blistering portrayal of sex, psychosis, and teenage self-destruction. The supposed diary of a middle-class addict, Go Ask Alice terrified adults and cemented LSD's fearsome reputation, fueling support for the War on Drugs. Five million copies later, Go Ask Alice remains a divisive bestseller, outraging censors and earning new fans, all of them drawn by the book's mythic premise: A Real Diary, by Anonymous.

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.