Organised chronologically, the book brings you the most inventive and diverting ways humans have swindled and scammed one another. In some cases the motivation is financial... Elsewhere, scientists have tampered with evidence in the vain hope of proving their pet theories; failed artists have forged the works of past masters to garner some of their kudos; and impostors have sought to hide their own drab, uninteresting origins under the mantle of borrowed names.