Steering clear of cons requires a heightened awareness and healthy skepticism, along with an appreciation for just how widespread scams are. The Con: How Scams Work, Why You're Vulnerable, and How to Protect Yourself is an insightful, revealing look at scams, why they work, and how to avoid them. Through the use of personal narratives, the book teaches people to assess and reject advances, encounters, and approaches that do not meet sufficient standards of credibility.

A hard-edged guide to New York City swindles, street life, and culture, through direct interviews with con artists and hustlers.

This is going to be Frank’s year. He’s going to do it all: find love, become a famous comedian, and responsibly parent his plants. But then, Giorgio gets hit by a bus. Self-assured and utterly entitled, Giorgio has always seemed like “Frank, but better.” Moving in with and caring for his estranged childhood friend quickly starts to chip away at Frank’s sense of self, as well as Giogio’s carefully curated online persona. Is Giorgio’s penchant for overindulgence truly aspirational? Or is it ultimately a red flag? The further Frank is pulled into Giorgio’s orbit, the quicker his existential dread blooms. Expectation and reality soon collide in a singular tale about trust and confidence. Luke Healy’s playful, hilarious third graphic novel uses crisp lines and physical comedy to portray an uneasy friendship between two young men on the cusp of adulting. Snippets from Frank’s middling stand-up routines are punctuated by the subtle farce of Healy’s mise-en-scène and the lively, at times scathingly pointed, banter of old friends. The Con Artists is a stylish character study that asks the question of who fools who once everyone is off-camera.

Three young geniuses from around the globe hatch a plot to trick a vicious warlord, infiltrate a mastermind's organization, protect their families, and save the world.

Noah is an artist. Ever since he learned to draw, people have been impressed by his remarkable skills. When there's an art contest at The Club, Noah is certain that he'll win the big prize, until he sees Milo's painting. Noah is scared. Everyone expects Noah to win the contest. If he loses, he believes he'll lose the one skill he's most proud of. Noah is determined to beat Milo, but at what cost? Is winning worth compromising his values?

A teen forger and thief forms a criminal crew from her high school friends (and crush) to perform a series of heists leading to the location of her missing mother in this action-packed contemporary YA novel, The Con Code. By day, seventeen-year-old Fiona Spangler runs small cons for her ritzy prep-school classmates: getting them out of tests and forging fake hall passes. But by night, Fiona joins her dad on riskier heists: stealing back the clue-filled forgeries her mom scattered across the country before she disappeared. Fiona desperately hopes that her mother will be waiting at the end of the scavenger hunt she left behind. And they are SO close. Just three more heists remain, but then disaster strikes when Fiona’s dad is captured by the FBI. Desperate to finish the job and save what’s left of her family, Fiona assembles of crew of teen criminals: a master of disguise who can transform into anyone, a talented hacker who only communicates in glares, and a rival con artist with a vendetta against—and possible crush on—Fiona. All they have to do is perform three nearly impossible heists, solve her mother’s incredibly complex clues, and evade the FBI. Easy, right? Praise for Shana Silver's Mind Games: “An edge-of-your-seat thriller that will keep readers guessing. The complex plot, the occasional twists, and the quick pacing make this a difficult read to put down.” —School Library Journal "It's a YA Michael Crichton novel, minus the 100-page master class intro on quantum mechanics, biotech, and string theory...Mind Games is an absolute blast. If you are a fan of Memento or Strange Days, this one's definitely for you!" —NPR

Art scams are today so numerous that the specter of a lawsuit arising from a mistaken attribution has scared a number of experts away from the business of authentication and forgery, and with good reason. Art scams are increasingly convincing and involve incredible sums of money. The cons perpetrated by unscrupulous art dealers and their accomplices are proportionately elaborate. Anthony M. Amore's The Art of the Con tells the stories of some of history's most notorious yet untold cons. They involve stolen art hidden for decades; elaborate ruses that involve the Nazis and allegedly plundered art; the theft of a conceptual prototype from a well-known artist by his assistant to be used later to create copies; the use of online and television auction sites to scam buyers out of millions; and other confidence scams incredible not only for their boldness but more so because they actually worked. Using interviews and newly released court documents, The Art of the Con will also take the reader into the investigations that led to the capture of the con men, who oftentimes return back to the world of crime. For some, it's an irresistible urge because their innocent dupes all share something in common: they want to believe.