Con Artists Memoir

After her father died in 2003, Susan Fensten turned to a genealogy message board to search for surviving relatives. Days later, she was delighted to receive an email from someone claiming to be a distant cousin. In fact, Susan had just been ensnared by a relentless sociopath. She soon became the target of an elaborate cyber-hoax involving dozens of frightening characters, including known sex offenders, who made threats of kidnapping, murder, rape, torture, and cannibalism. Remarkable in its complexity, this story of Internet stalking is also a harrowing tale of courage in the face of madness.

Crimes fueled by emotions. When it comes to the emotions, people can react in strange and unexpected ways. Whether it's a heart hurt by unrequited love, or a lover so passionate they'll stop at nothing to get their way - even the most mild-mannered soul can suddenly flip, becoming a vengeful spirit with dark intentions. From the ancient Greek myth of Jason and Medea to Shakespeare's Othello, themes dealing with deeply felt emotions have persisted. But unlike mythology or fiction, The Best New True Crime Stories contains stories from real life.

This is the enormously entertaining story of how a fraudulent surgeon made a fortune by inserting goats' testes into impotent American men. "Doctor" John Brinkley became a world renowned authority on sexual rejuvenation in the 1920s, with famous politicians and even royalty asking for his services.

Cannibal. Necrophiliac. Kidnapper. Killer. The stories of serial killers often begin with terrible upbringings and sad events of trauma, but not all have such unfortunate beginnings. Some simply develop their evil on their own and become tainted without anyone realizing it. Jeffrey Dahmer was a man described by his own father as the result of a child becoming lost in the maelstrom while nobody paid attention, a child who was strange and apathetic but whom nobody bothered to ask why.

Curious about the modern love affair with criminal personalities, investigative reporter Conor Woodman spent four years exploring the hidden depths of dynamic cities across the globe. Sharks takes us on a journey through the lawless backstreets of cities as diverse as Mumbai, Bogotá, New Orleans, Barcelona and London. In each he uncovers the people and the scams that keep the global black economy moving.

A delightfully subversive essay collection from Laci Mosley, host of the award-winning “Scam Goddess” podcast, about the frauds, cons, and schemes that make up our world—and how the scammer mindset has affected her own upbringing, career, friendships, love life, and more. ​ From an early...

In May of 2007, in a small, quiet town in the South Moravia region of the Czech Republic, a technical glitch - a simple, accidental crossing of signals - revealed a terrible case of child abuse, and an entire nation watched transfixed with horror as the grisly extent of the perversion of the maternal instinct was revealed. Two small brothers named Jakub and Ondrej, nine and seven years old respectively, were revealed to have suffered confinement, mutilation, psychological brutality, and cannibalism at the hands of several people.

The tragic story of Natalee Holloway still remains a mystery to this day. The events prior to her disappearance are centered on unreliable witnesses, investigators not following proper procedures, and friends who had left her alone with local patrons. To say that a school trip is never supposed to turn out this way is a monumental understatement.

A lack of love in an authoritarian household sparked Andrew’s lifelong search for love and belonging. His AA sponsor introduced him to A Course in Miracles, which Andrew studied deeply for twenty years. Then a celebrated spiritual teacher invited him to edit his first book and join his community. Andrew had been led to believe that he was chosen to find the Love of God. After a heart-rending parting from his family, he moved to Utah and joined the community.

Operation White Rabbit traces the rise and fall - and rise and fall again - of the psychedelic community through the life of the man known as the "Acid King": William Leonard Pickard. Pickard was a legitimate genius, a follower of Timothy Leary, a con artist, a womanizer, and a believer that LSD would save lives. He was a foreign diplomat, a Harvard fellow, and the biggest producer of LSD on the planet - if you believe the DEA.

On December 9, 2001, Kathleen Peterson was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in her Durham, NC home. Her scalp was laced with deep incisions, and her blood was strewn from outside to inside the house. The sinister truth of that night turned her murder into North Carolina's most enigmatic criminal case, capturing media attention across the globe.

In 1988, detectives from the Sacramento Police Department were called to investigate the disappearance of a man at his last known address - a boarding house for the elderly, homeless, and mentally ill. The owner, Dorothea Puente, was an adorable old lady who cared for stray cats and the rest of society’s castaways. She had a strong standing in the community and was celebrated for her selfless charitable work.

Tonia Bales married a handsome young man named John Meehan, who offered her a bright future. They had a happy marriage for nearly ten years, weathering the typical challenges couples experience. Then, Tonia sensed something was wrong. He started coming home late, spending more time traveling, and they were losing their connection. Her gut told her to start digging for answers. Her questions uncovered a web of lies and then a shocking truth: Tonia had married a sociopath.

When she was 15, Jennifer Mee developed an unrelenting case of the hiccups - hiccupping as many as 50 times a minute for months. Soon the Florida teen's strange story went viral. Dubbed the "Hiccup Girl" by the media, she gained international sympathy and appeared on a slew of popular TV shows. Eventually Jennifer's hiccups went away, and so did her fame.

For more than 60 years, Southern Californians entrusted the bodies of their loved ones to the Sconce family's Lamb Funeral Home. But the heirs to the fourth-generation funeral empire betrayed that trust with a series of gruesome crimes against the dead. Featured on ABC-TV's Nightline.

Sono criminali che non cercano violenza o sangue, ma il cui ingegno straordinario sa infliggere colpi magistrali al patrimonio e al nostro orgoglio. In Il potere dell'inganno, Carlo Lucarelli e Massimo Picozzi vi condurranno attraverso le menti più brillanti e tortuose della storia del crimine: da chi ha venduto due volte la Torre Eiffel a chi ha ingannato i nazisti con falsi Vermeer, da ladre di diamanti che hanno operato per sei decenni a falsari diventati eroi nazionali. Venti storie avvincenti che esplorano il lato oscuro del genio umano, dove l'inganno diventa arte.

Someone in the U.S. is an identity-theft victim every four seconds. It is extremely easy for anyone from anywhere in the world to assume your identity and, in a matter of hours, devastate your life in ways that can take years to recover from. Stealing Your Life is the reference everyone needs, by an unsurpassed authority on the latest identity-theft schemes.

From the bestselling author of Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside, a big-hearted memoir told in three parts: about growing up in the wake of the destructive choices of an extremely unconventional mother. “Extraordinary ... An audacious, boundary-shattering work.” —Los Angeles Times Glen...

In the summer of 1913, under the cover of London’s perpetual smoggy dusk, two brilliant minds are pitted against each other - a celebrated gentleman thief and a talented Scotland Yard detective - in the greatest jewel heist of the new century. An exquisite strand of pale pink pearls, worth more than the Hope Diamond, has been bought by a Hatton Garden broker. Word of the “Mona Lisa of Pearls” spreads around the world, captivating jewelers as well as thieves.

Anne Marie Allen was 15 when she was accepted onto a cookery school course that promised real qualifications and a future in the career of her dreams. Her happiness was short-lived as it became clear she had been tricked instead into a life of domestic servitude to the members of the Opus Dei cult. What followed were years of misery in slavery, forced celibacy and traumatic physical suffering under an ambitious and tyrannical institution that demanded perfection, humiliation and pain.