Con Men

by Catherine Johnson

Do you know your marks from your shills? Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of confidence tricksters. This title explores the history of confidence tricks and explains exactly how these criminals use psychology and smooth talk as well as elaborate tricks to extract money from their victims.

56 pages, Paperback

First published August 19, 2009

About the author

Catherine Johnson is a British author and screenwriter known for her young adult fiction and work in film, television and radio. Born in London to a Jamaican father and Welsh mother, she studied film at St Martin's School of Art before publishing her debut novel, The Last Welsh Summer (1993). She has since written around 20 novels, including works on Arctic explorer Matthew Henson, and won the 2019 Little Rebels Award for Freedom. Her historical novel Sawbones (2013) earned multiple shortlistings and the Young Quills Award. Johnson co-wrote the screenplay for Bullet Boy (2004) with Saul Dibb, and has served as Royal Literary Fund Fellow, Writer in Residence at Holloway Prison, and judge for the Jhalak Prize. In 2019, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Reviews

[Alice Visser · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book in the 'Reality Check' series for reluctant/struggling readers (Barrington Stoke). Loved this one as it has nf details about the methods & language of con men plus a story about how it would have played out in 1920's America.