5 Books That Make You Root for Con Artists, Grifters, and Tricksters

They’re clever, observant, and charming (at least when it suits whatever game they’re playing). Their ability to read people is so fine-tuned it almost feels like magic. There’s something so undeniably magnetic about the particular blend of skill and charisma that they bring to their craft that within just fifty years of the appearance of the original “confidence man” on the streets of mid-nineteenth-century New York, the term for these savvy swindlers had transformed to con artist, their chosen medium the ever-malleable minds of other people.

In Cards on the Table, the Bishop sisters bill themselves as the genuine article—witches descended from one of Salem’s most storied sorceresses—but privately, Tori knows their “gift” is nothing but a very specific, well-honed set of skills. And they’re not the only ones plying their art at the spooky Berkshires mansion where they’re hired as witches-in-residence. They’re after as much of the Berwyn fortune as they can safely get their hands on, even though that means depriving Rose’s legitimate heirs of some (or all) of the money they’ve come to expect.

Maybe it’s the old Robin Hood impulse to bilk the rich, or maybe it’s just the glee of seeing a true master at work, but when we wrote CoTT, we were rooting for the cons from page one. And we’re keeping the long game going with these delightful stories of grifters, tricksters, and cons.

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Ashley Elston, First Lie Wins

“Evie Porter,” the professional con artist at the center of this delightfully twisty cat-and-mouse story, is incredibly clever, observant, and tough as tempered steel. She’s pulling off her latest job with ease, convincing everyone she and her mark, Ryan, are in love…until an old friend of Ryan’s shows up with a new girlfriend in tow—a woman wearing Evie’s real name and spouting details from her real life. Worse, Evie’s starting to develop real feelings for Ryan. Unsure whether (and why) her mysterious boss, “Mr. Smith,” has sent the newcomer, she’s forced to untangle the con being run on her before it’s too late.

The book is fast-paced and full of curveballs, but between Evie’s troubled past and her developing feelings in the present, you can’t help but root for her, even if she does have a… flexible relationship with the law.

Kirsten Chen, Counterfeit

This glitzy, incisive read has more layers than a nesting doll. The story centers around Ava Wong, running an increasingly unwieldy shell game with her one-time roommate Winnie, and the literal fakes they’re trading in: near-identical knock-offs of ludicrously expensive handbags, the ultimate status symbol for a certain set of wealthy women.

Ava’s respectable life as a lawyer makes her the perfect front for the scheme, but soon she’s taking increasingly greater risks; when Winnie disappears, Ava finds herself on the hook for a massive international scheme.

Sly, funny, and insightful, this book has more than a whiff of a modern-day Robin Hood tale.

Wendy Heard, You Can Trust Me

Summer and Leo, the young conwomen at the center of this twisty page-turner, have always had to struggle just to make ends meet, so when Leo spots a chance to con a billionaire, she’s more than up for the challenge (and anticipating an unprecedented haul). But after wrangling an invite to the billionaire’s private island off the California coast, Leo goes missing.

Summer, devastated by the loss of her friend, decides to find her own way on to the island…which she won’t be able to escape for days, as there’s only one way off. There’s no sign of Leo, and Summer soon realizes that if she can’t figure out what happened, she might be the next victim.

Beyond excellent thriller beats, this delectable novel has two intriguing, complex women at its center, more like sisters than friends, who are as compelling as the tightly woven plot.

Finley Turner, The Tarot Reader

There’s no way we could not include this book on our list. It features two tarot-reading con artist sisters, Jade and Stevie, who have been forced to fend for themselves for as long as they can remember. But when Jade sends a fabricated “psychic vision” to the police tip line and it winds up eerily correct, the girls find themselves at the center of a media whirlwind…and possibly caught in the sights of a serial killer.

It’s impossible not to root for the scrappy sisters at the heart of this tense, fast-paced novel (and we’d let them read our tarot any day).

Frank Abagnale, Catch Me If You Can

It’s impossible to pull together a list of ultimate con artist stories without a hat tip to Frank Abagnale’s memoir of his years-long series of scams, forgeries, and international run-ins with the law. The ultimate charismatic con, Abagnale pulled off his many heists with breathtaking chutzpah, earning millions from check forgeries, passing himself off variously as a hospital supervisor, an attorney, a college professor, and a PanAm pilot—committing so fully to the bit that he actually co-piloted a commercial plane. Perhaps most impressive of all, he claims to have managed all these feats before he even reached his twenty-first birthday.

As charming a writer as he must have been when practicing his first “art,” Abagnale’s memoir reads like fiction…and some of it might be (after all, he was in the business of fakery for years). Honestly, though, does it really matter? Whether or not every heist he describes is fully “true,” the story is unputdownable.

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