Showing titles in Con Artists, Hoaxes & Deceptions

Late-1970s Los Angeles was rampant with killers and shady characters, but all the go-getters at Space Matters saw was possibility. Richard Kasparov was handsome and charismatic; his younger associate, Jerry Schneiderman, brilliant and nerdy. When the pair hired a veteran contractor to oversee construction, the space planning firm they operated out of a hip mansion in LA's Miracle Mile district appeared poised to transform the boundless skyline into their jackpot. After the promising team imploded, however, the orderly lines on their blueprints succumbed to treachery and secrets. 

John R. Brinkley (July 8, 1885 - May 26, 1942) became nationally known as the "goat gland doctor" for his controversial medical practice that promised virility for his male patients. He was a pioneer in radio broadcasting and advertising, as he promoted his services to his large listening audience. Despite detractors and critics in the medical community thoroughly discrediting his methods, Brinkley operated clinics and hospitals in several states for two decades.

After Kevin Corley’s military career came to an ill-fated end, he answered another call of duty, unaware that he was walking into a ruse orchestrated by one of the government’s most enterprising agents. John Leonard was posing online as an underworld figure to entrap those who were predisposed to crime. When he lured Lieutenant Corley into his scheme, he didn’t know how wrong it would go. And Corley had no idea he had so much left to lose.

Minnie was just 16 when she stood trial for the wrongful death of her first husband, a successful businessman and politician almost 40 years her senior. Despite overwhelming witness testimony that the Creole beauty from New Orleans had purchased the arsenic that killed him, Minnie's own testimony brought the entire courtroom to tears. She was acquitted. Minnie returned to New Orleans with James Walkup's fortune, but she still didn't have enough cash for her liking, so she successfully targeted, seduced, and murdered two more wealthy older men while evading justice in the courtroom.

From the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author comes the gripping true story of a sensational religious forgery and the scandal that shook Harvard. In 2012, Dr. Karen King, a star religion professor at Harvard, announced a breathtaking discovery just steps from the Vatican: she’d...

The spellbinding tale of hustler Edgar Laplante—the king of Jazz Age con artists—who becomes the victim of his own dangerous game. Edgar Laplante was a smalltime grifter, an erstwhile vaudeville performer, and an unabashed charmer. But after years of playing thankless gigs and traveling with...

When Mark Kilroy vanished while on spring break in Matamoros, Mexico, the search for the missing pre-med student led to a gruesome discovery on a lonely stretch of land called Rancho Santa Elena: a mass grave containing Mark's mutilated corpse along with the remains of thirteen other people. The investigation uncovered how the victims were brutally killed at the hands of drug trafficker and cult leader Adolpho Constanzo, known by his followers as El Padrino, or The Godfather.

Der Mann, in den ich mich verliebt hatte, und mit dem ich sogar verlobt war, war ein Betrüger, und als er durch einen dummen Zufall erwischt wurde, kam plötzlich sein Wahnsinn zum Vorschein. Mein Leben bestand nur noch aus Schikanen und es wurde immer unerträglicher. Je mehr ich nachforschte, desto mehr Scheußlichkeiten deckte ich auf.

Desde los clásicos trileros hasta los estafadores de criptomonedas, esta es la apasionante historia de los charlatanes y de por qué caemos una y otra vez en sus trampas.

Two victims of the infamous Cleveland kidnapper share the story of their abductions, their decade in captivity, and their final, dramatic rescue On May 6, 2013, Amanda Berry made headlines around the world when she fled a Cleveland area home and called 911, saying: “Help me, I’m Amanda Berry...

In this 2018 New York Times Notable Book,Paige Williams "does for fossils what Susan Orlean did for orchids" (Book Riot) in her account of one Florida man's attempt to sell a dinosaur skeleton from Mongolia--a story "steeped in natural history, human nature, commerce, crime, science, and...

As the 21st century marches into its third decade, our understanding of the world, and our place within it, seems to be clearer than ever. Each day brings us more and more miraculous scientific discoveries, while technology has interconnected us to an extent that our ancestors and forefathers could not have conceived. And yet, despite the collective of human knowledge lying at our fingertips, there are still a multitude of unsolved mysteries that stubbornly resist any attempts at solving them.

Eddie Tipton went to prison in 2017 for masterminding the biggest lottery fraud in U.S. history. In a twisting and bizarre tale, he somehow mixed a cocktail of greed, Bigfoot hunting, deception, cybercrime, and a love of hot dogs on his way to a felony conviction after he and several accomplices scored a series of jackpots from rigged drawings but fell short on the biggest "score" of them all. It's a wild story of greed and misplaced confidence, and a study in public officials whose determination survived a nearly cold trail.

Chilling. One of the best words to describe the cases recounted in this book set. These gruesome crimes seemed to hit a dead end...that is until the cases were reopened for investigation later and then solved thanks to modern technologies and investigation techniques. From the more famous cases to the more obscure, the crimes and hardships that the victims had to suffer will send shivers down your spine. Notably detailing the disappearance of Chandra Levy as well as the multiple murders committed by Dennis Rader.

Brigitte Scholl disappeared on 29 December 2011, the day after her 47th wedding anniversary. The flowers her husband had given her - red roses - were still on the living room table; in the corner stood the Christmas tree, straight as a die and lavishly decorated. Everything had to be just so. It was to be perfect right up to the end. A woman is brutally murdered and buried in the woods. Suspicion falls on her husband - the former mayor of a small town south of Berlin. They had been married almost 50 years and were considered the perfect couple.

The best-known educator of the 20th century was a scammer in cashmere. "The most famous reading teacher in the world," as television hosts introduced her, Evelyn Wood had little classroom experience, no degrees in reading instruction, and a background that included a collaboration with the Third Reich. Nevertheless, a nation spooked by Sputnik and panicked by paperwork eagerly embraced her promises of a speed-reading revolution.

In 1973, Frances Vieta, an Italian American journalist living in Rome, is incensed to learn that New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has purchased a priceless Greek vase, the Euphronios Krater, for $1 million. Ms. Vieta suspects the antiquity was illegally looted from Italy and smuggled out of the country. She sets out to investigate the acquisition, teaming up with Rodolfo Siviero, an Italian minister and art recovery expert, and the Carabinieri Art Squad, a special unit of the Italian army dedicated to protecting cultural heritage.

Francesca's parents represented opposing world-views. Her mother always slid her way out of questions about the past, saying only “My life started when you were born.” Her dad, an absent bodybuilder, loved telling stories about his seemingly larger-than-life past. He said he would tell her anything she wanted to know. But more often than not, it was a total lie. When Francesca was 9, he went to prison, and her mother, the grounding center of Francesca's world, moved her half a continent away...

A revelatory account of how the family behind Hobby Lobby rose to political prominence and used their influence—and fortune—to push a radical religious agenda Hobby Lobby is a multibillion-dollar craft store chain with more than a thousand US locations, founded and owned by the Greens—an...

Des menottes aux plateaux TV internationaux, l'histoire vraie d'un arnaqueur repenti devenu une référence du hacking éthique. Marwan Ouarab livre 14 récits plus incroyables les uns que les autres. Pendant des années, Marwan Ouarab a enchaîné les arnaques : l'escroc derrière l'e-mail sympathique, le bonimenteur prêt à vous faire mordre à l'hameçon, le hacker qui s'introduit dans votre téléphone, c'était lui. Fausses annonces sur Leboncoin , vente de billets de concert falsifiés, piratage d'ordinateurs, la panoplie était large.