The confidence game
Explores the psyches, motives, and methods of con artists to reveal why they are consistently successful, identifying common hallmarks of cons to share additional insights into the relationship between artists and victims.
Maria Konnikova, a psychologist by training, applies her expertise in human behavior and cognition to dissect the mechanics of deception in "The Confidence Game." This approach is consistent with her earlier work, "Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes," which also explores cognitive processes and human psychology, albeit from the perspective of deduction and observation.
The book draws extensively on real-world examples of con artists and their schemes, analyzing historical and contemporary cases to illustrate the psychological principles at play. While not a narrative of a single true story, it synthesizes numerous actual events to build its arguments about the nature of confidence tricks.