The art of the con has a long and venerable tradition, and its female practitioners are some of the best—or worst. Surveying three centuries of imposture, Tori Telfer introduces the Fox sisters, frauds who sparked a spiritualist revival; an embezzler who stole 40 prized show dogs; and the woman who scammed France's royal jewelers out of a necklace made from 647 diamonds by pretending she was best friends with Queen Marie Antoinette. Here too are ladies pretending to be a Civil War soldier; Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter; or the Russian Princess, Anastasia. Telfer also asks, where does chutzpah intersect with a uniquely female pathology—and how were these notorious women able to dupe and swindle their victims?