Do you love reading thrillers and suspense stories that feature grifters, con artists, impostors and more? Me too! Check out my list of Best Books About Grifters and Con Artists, which includes fiction books about con artists and YA books about con artists!
Jen’s Quick Picks for Con Artist Books and Shows
- Most discussable: None of This is True
- Twistiest: First Lie Wins
- Best page-turning fun: Yellowface OR The Plot
- Best YA: The Heist Society
- Vibe-y conning the rich: The Guest and You Can Trust Me
Books About Con Artists and Grifters
There’s something fun (and a little unnerving) about reading books about con artists and grifters. How do they pick their marks? How are they able to gain the trust of others?
I’ve seen an uptick in thrillers and suspense books about con artists and I’m not mad about it.
This book will be divided into adult fiction and non-fiction books about con artists; YA Books about con artists; and movies and shows about con artists.
If I’ve missed something, let me know in the comments!
Best Fiction Books About Con Artists
Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell
Check out my Readers Guide and Spoiler Discussion post.
This twisted tale of a con artist who scams multiple women will grip you until the very last page!
Trust Issues by Elizabeth McCullough Keenan & Greg Wands
Check out my Review with Spoilers!
This twisty, fun 2025 title features two rich siblings who are shocked to learn that their estranged mother is dead. Then they begin to suspect that her new husband did her in, leaving them out in the cold.
Lots of fun to read!
First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston
Read my review with SPOILERS here!
Evie is a professional con artist. After stealing to support her family, she’s recruited by the mysterious Mr. Smith to help him in his blackmailing business.
But then Evie meets the challenge of her life. First, she feels like she might be falling in love with her latest mark. Even worse, someone seems to be coming after her …. hard.
None of This is True by Lisa Jewell
- Podcast elements
- Very discussable – perfect for book club or join my discussion!
- Tons of twists and turns!
My Review of None of This is True and if you’ve read the book, please join my Spoiler Discussion for None of This is True.
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
Tom Ripley, a young striver seeking to leave behind his past as an orphan, heads to the heady world of Manhattan.
There, Ripley meets a wealthy industrialist who hires him to bring his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf, back from gallivanting in Italy. Soon Ripley’s fascination with Dickie’s debonair lifestyle turns obsessive as he finds himself enraged by Dickie’s ambivalent affections for Marge, a charming American dilettante. Thus, Ripley begins a deadly game.
This is also a movie with Matt Damon, Gwenyth Paltrow, and Jude Law.
And check out Ripley, a new Netflix series based on Highsmith’s book!
The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark
Check out my Review of The Lies I Tell and my Spoiler Discussion Post for The Lies I Tell.
Meg Williams. Maggie Littleton. Melody Wilde. Different names for the same person, depending on the town, depending on the job.
She’s a con artist who erases herself to become whoever you need her to be―a college student. A life coach. A real estate agent. Nothing about her is real. She slides alongside you and tells you exactly what you need to hear, and by the time she’s done, you’ve likely lost everything.
Kat Roberts has been waiting ten years for the woman who upended her life to return. And now that she has, Kat is determined to be the one to expose her.
But as the two women grow closer, Kat’s long-held assumptions begin to crumble, leaving Kat to wonder who Meg’s true target is.
The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Read my Review of the Plot and check out my Spoiler Discussion Post for the Plot
Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book, but he hasn’t written―let alone published―anything decent in years.
When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces that the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then . . . he hears the plot.
Then Jake discovers that his former student has died, presumably without ever completing his book, and does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story like that: he steals it.
In a few short years, Jake is wealthy, famous, and read all over the world. But at the height of his glorious new life, an e-mail arrives, the first salvo in a terrifying, anonymous campaign: You are a thief, it says. What is the real story behind the plot, and who stole it from whom?
The Guest by Emma Kline
Summer is coming to a close on the East End of Long Island, and Alex is no longer welcome.
A misstep at a dinner party, and the older man she’s been staying with dismisses her with a ride to the train station and a ticket back to the city.
With few resources and a waterlogged phone, but gifted with an ability to navigate the desires of others, Alex stays on Long Island and drifts like a ghost through the hedged lanes, gated driveways, and sun-blasted dunes of a rarefied world that is, at first, closed to her.
Propelled by desperation and a mutable sense of morality, she spends the week leading up to Labor Day moving from one place to the next, a cipher leaving destruction in her wake.
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
Read my Review of Yellowface
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.
So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.
But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
Sun Damage by Sabine Durrant
Read my Review of Sun Damage
In a tiny village in Provence, nine guests arrive at a luxury holiday home.
The visitors know each other well, or at least they think they do.
The only stranger among them is Lulu, the young woman catering their stay. But Lulu is not exactly the woman on the video the guests thought they’d hired. Turns out Lulu has plenty to hide—and nowhere to run as the heat rises.
In this seemingly idyllic getaway, under the scorching sun, loyalties will be tested, secrets exposed, and tensions pushed to the brink . . .
Non-Fiction Books About Con Artists
My Friend Anna by Rachel DeLoache Williams
Rachel’s friend Anna Delvey, a self-proclaimed German heiress, is worldly and ambitious. Also generous: she picks up the tab for lavish dinners and drinks, plus regular workout sessions with a celebrity personal trainer.
When Anna proposes an all-expenses-paid trip to Marrakech at s five-star hotel, Rachel jumps at the chance. But when Anna’s credit cards mysteriously stop working, the dream vacation quickly takes a dark turn.
Anna asks Rachel to begin fronting costs—first for flights, then meals and shopping, and, finally, for their $7,500-per-night private villa. Rachel learns that more than $62,000 has been charged to her credit cards. Anna swears she can reimburse Rachel the moment they return to New York.
Back in Manhattan, the repayment never materializes, and a shocking pattern of deception emerges. Rachel learns that Anna had left a trail of deceit—and unpaid bills—wherever she’d been. Mortified, Rachel contacts the district attorney, and in a stunning turn of events, finds herself helping to bring down one of the city’s most notorious con artists.
Catch Me if You Can by Frank W. Abagnale
Frank W. Abagnale, alias Frank Williams, Robert Conrad, Frank Adams, and Robert Monjo, was one of the most daring con men, forgers, imposters, and escape artists in history.
In his brief but notorious criminal career, Abagnale donned a pilot’s uniform and copiloted a Pan Am jet, masqueraded as the supervising resident of a hospital, practiced law without a license, passed himself off as a college sociology professor, and cashed over $2.5 million in forged checks, all before he was twenty-one.
YA Books About Con Artists and Grifters
You Can Trust Me by Wendy Heard
Check out my review of You Can Trust Me!
Summer and Leo would do anything for each other. Summer is a skilled pickpocket, a small-time thief, and a con artist. Leo, determined to pay her own way, has learned a trick or two.
Leo sets her sights on billionaire Michael Forrester and wangles an invitation to his private island off the California coastline. But Leo disappears.
Trust Me, I’m Lying by Mary Elizabeth Summer
Julep Dupree is a con artist and a sophomore at Chicago’s swanky St. Agatha High. Her father, also a grifter, sends her there so she can learn to mingle with the upper crust.
Julep runs petty scams for her classmates while dodging the dean of students. But one day she comes home one day to a ransacked apartment and her father gone
With help from St. Agatha’s resident Prince Charming, Tyler Richland, and her loyal hacker sidekick, Julep struggles to trace her dad’s trail of clues through a maze of creepy stalkers, hit attempts, and family secrets.
The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe
Nora O’Malley’s been a lot of girls. As the daughter of a con-artist who targets criminal men, she grew up as her mother’s protégé. But when her mom fell for the mark instead of conning him, Nora pulled the ultimate con: escape.
For five years Nora’s been playing at normal. But she needs to dust off the skills she ditched because she has some problems:
First, Wes, her ex, just found out about her new girlfriend, Iris.
Then, the morning after Wes finds them kissing, they all have to meet to deposit the fundraiser money they raised at the bank. It’s a nightmare that goes from awkward to deadly, because right after they enter the bank, two guys start robbing it.
The bank robbers may be trouble, but Nora’s something else entirely. They have no idea who they’re really holding hostage.
Heist Society by Ally Carter
For as long as she can remember, Katarina has been a part of the family business—thieving. When Kat tries to leave “the life” for a normal life, her old friend Hale conspires to bring her back into the fold. Why? A mobster’s art collection has been stolen, and Kat’s father is the only suspect. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat’s dad needs her help.
The only solution is to find the paintings and steal them back. Kat’s got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family’s history—and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way.
Shows and Movies About Con Artists and Grifters
Besides the ones mentioned above, you can check out:
Best Con Artist Shows Based on True Stories:
Inventing Anna
The Tinder Swindler
The Dropout
McMillion$
Best Fictional Shows About Con Artists:
Sneaky Pete
Leverage
White Collar
Lupin
Impostors
The Catch
Burn Notice
Do you have a favorite book about con artists and grifters that I left off the list? Tell me in comments!