Flimflam Artists: True Tales of Cults, Crackpots, Cranks, Cretins, Crooks, Creeps, Con artists, and Charlatans

In the 17th century, critics of John Milton observed that in Paradise Lost, Lucifer steals the show. The same thing holds true today. We begin with a fanciful tale of God and Satan. What follows is a collection of true stories about Society’s rogues—the flimflam artists, whores, painted ladies, voodoo queens, and honky-tonk angels that inhabit the world. We depict the lives of a few favorites among these captivating, infuriating, (sometimes) horrifying, and larger than life frauds.