The Hoax, by Clifford Irving

A few weeks ago I went to see movie version of The Hoax and enjoyed it. It's the true story of a writer named Clifford Irving who, in 1971, wrote an "as told to" autobiography of reclusive weirdo billionaire Howard Hughes. Irving never met or communicated with Hughes, but he was able to fool the publisher and the rest of the world for an entire year. When he finally got caught, he was sent to prison for two years.

I had a feeling Irving's book, The Hoax, would be even better than the movie, and it was. It's a nail-biter. Irving and his partner Richard Susskind's audacity, resourcefulness, and extraordinary dumb luck were almost, but not quite, enough to allow them to pull off the literary fraud of the century.

The most surprising thing to me was how Irving was able to keep his elaborate lie a secret. Only he, his wife, his mistress, and Susskind knew the truth. In the half-dozen or so times that it looked like all was lost and that he was about to be exposed and shamed, he miraculously managed not only to squirm out of it, but to actually bolster the charade that he really was meeting Hughes on a regular basis. When he finally does get inescapably ensnared in his lies, it's for a reason he never had considered.

I love real life thrillers like this. If you know of any other true stories that have the same kind of exciting tension, please let me know. Buy for $11.66 on Amazon