Showing titles in Con Artists, Hoaxes & Deceptions

Alex Blum was a good kid, a popular high school hockey star from a tight-knit Colorado family. He had one goal in life: endure a brutally difficult selection program, become a US Army Ranger, and fight terrorists for his country. In the first hours of his final leave before deployment to Iraq, Alex was supposed to fly home to see his family and beloved girlfriend. Instead, he got into his car with two fellow soldiers and two strangers, drove to a local bank in Tacoma, and committed armed robbery....

Bunk traces the history of the hoax as a peculiarly American phenomenon, examining what motivates hucksters and makes the rest of us so gullible. Disturbingly, Young finds that fakery is woven from stereotype and suspicion, race being the most insidious American hoax of all. He chronicles how Barnum came to fame by displaying figures like Joice Heth, a black woman whom he pretended was the 161-year-old nursemaid to George Washington.

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.

Over the course of a year, the members of the now infamous Bling Ring allegedly burglarized some of the biggest names in young Hollywood. Driven by celebrity worship, vanity, and the desire to look and dress like the rich and famous, these seven teenagers made headlines for using Google maps, Facebook, and TMZ to track the comings and goings of their targets. Many of the houses were unlocked. Alarms disabled. A "perfect" crime - celebrities already had so much, why shouldn't the Bling Ring take their share?

When Who the Hell is Hamish? hit podcast platforms in 2019, Tracy Hall quickly became known as the last victim of one of the world's most prolific con men, Hamish McLaren. At last, Tracy is sharing the full story of how she overcame financial and emotional betrayal in this fast-paced, witty and empowering true crime memoir.

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.

The six true-crime stories included in this collection are dark and chilling, and will leave you with a new understanding of just how fragile the human mind can be.

Coleen Greenwood was overjoyed to meet James Scott, a heroic firefighter and man of her dreams. Little would she know her dreams would soon become a nightmare as his web of lies started to unravel. The astonishing true story of one man’s lies and a family’s fight for justice.

Organ donation is so common and regulated, it’s specified on your driver’s license.

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.

The idyllic quiet of a picture postcard English village is shattered when a book club member is murdered by his former student and lover. But why would anyone kill a retired English teacher, a pillar of his community? Perhaps the answer lies in the trail of writing that he, and his killer, left behind: diaries, poems and novels. Documentary maker Gillian Pachter lifts the lace curtain to reveal a secret wedding, sordid affairs, drug abuse and psychological torture. She enlists the help of James, a former student of the victim, to try and uncover the truth. 

Guilty Admissions weaves together the story of an unscrupulous college counselor named Rick Singer, and how he preyed on the desperation of some of the country's wealthiest families living in a world defined by fierce competition, who function under constant pressure to get into the "right" schools, starting with preschool; nonstop fundraising and donation demands in the form of multi-million-dollar galas and private parties; and a community of deeply insecure parents who will do anything to get their kids into name-brand colleges in order to maintain their own A-list status.

London, 1932. Thomas James Wise is the toast of the literary establishment. A prominent collector and businessman, he is renowned on both sides of the Atlantic for unearthing the most stunning first editions and bringing them to market. Pompous and fearsome, with friends in high places, he is one of the most powerful men in the field of rare books. One night, two young booksellers - one a dishevelled former communist, the other a martini-swilling fan of detective stories - stumble upon a strange discrepancy. It will lead them to suspect Wise and his books are not all they seem.

Rob Sand, the youngest attorney in his office, was assigned a new case by his boss, who was days away from retirement. Inside the thin accordion binder that Sand received was meager evidence that had been gathered over the course of two years by Iowa authorities regarding a suspicious lottery ticket. No one expected the case to go anywhere. No dead body, no shots fired, and no money paid out. Why should they care?

When Speaker Newt Gingrich greeted Dr. David Lewis in his office overlooking the National Mall, he looked at Dr. Lewis and said: "You know you’re going to be fired for this, don’t you?" "I know," Dr. Lewis replied, "I just hope to stay out of prison." Gingrich had just read Dr. Lewis' commentary in Nature, titled "EPA Science: Casualty of Election Politics".

It is often difficult to comprehend what makes a person kill. But when they kill and then commit further acts of depravity on their victim, it gives a whole new meaning to wrongdoing. In volume three of the True Crime Stories, we examine murderers who have all displayed the same gut-churning, wicked twist - each of them ate their victims. Each of these violent killers is examined in detail, including their backgrounds, the crimes they committed, and how they were brought to justice.

Will you be the same after experiencing the mind of a murderous killer? What will happen to your world view and your thought process after learning the WHY behind each horrific act? The disturbing nature of these stories often makes you question everything you thought or believed about humanity. Yet they are engaging and fascinating at the same time. We all had wicked thoughts throughout our lives. What is it that makes us different from those who act upon it? Is it that they have a stronger "why"? Were they born evil?

Dominque Dunne appeared in several films and television series from 1979 to 1982, but was best known for portraying the oldest daughter in the 1982 horror film Poltergeist. She seemed destined for stardom until tragedy struck on October 30, 1982. Dominique was strangled by her ex-boyfriend, John Thomas Sweeney, in the driveway of her West Hollywood home and went into a coma. She never regained consciousness and died five days later. This is her story.

The dust had yet to settle on the global financial crisis in 2009 when an unlikely Wharton grad set in motion a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude--one that would come to symbolize the next great threat to the global financial system. At the centre of this fraud was Jho Low--a character so preposterous he seems made up. Federal agents who helped unravel Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme say the Jho Low affair, when its full contours become known, will become a textbook case for tracking transnational fraud in the modern age.

In January 2017, Chimene Suleyman was on her way to an abortion clinic in Queens, New York with her boyfriend, the father of her nascent child. It was the last day they would spend together. In an extraordinary sequence of events, Chimene was to discover the truth of her boyfriend's life: that she and many other women had been subtly, patiently and painfully betrayed. In this spellbinding memoir, she exposes one man's control over many women and the trauma he left behind, and celebrates the sisterhood that formed in his wake despite - and in spite of - him.