Scam Goddess: Lessons from a Life of Cons, Grifts, and Schemes

Scam Goddess podcast host Mosley’s comedic chops serve her well in this hilarious collection about the lessons she’s learned from enduring cons, researching them for her show, and carrying them out herself. “Everything is a scam and everyone is a scammer,” Mosley writes, tracing that realization back to her childhood in rural Texas in the 1990s and early aughts, when she would watch her Baptist preacher pontificate from the pulpit, even as he was stealing money from the congregation behind closed doors. Mosley then covers her early days trying to hack it as an actor in Los Angeles, when she narrowly averted shady roommates who wanted to overcharge her for insufficient accommodations and social-climbing beaus. In addition to dispensing wisdom gleaned from those experiences (“The true mark of a Scam Goddess is knowing when to keep your damn mouth shut”), Mosley highlights jaw-dropping examples of historical con artists, including Italian surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, who gained notoriety after his supposedly revolutionary windpipe treatments ended up killing patients, and authorities learned he’d wildly overstated his medical training. Throughout, Mosley strikes a careful balance between endorsing small-scale hustles “to get ahead” and condemning monstrous behavior. The results are as thought-provoking as they are irreverent. Agent: Cindy Uh, CAA. (Sept.)