Last week I was under attack., and it was completely my own doing. I nearly fell victim to two separate and independent scams. And while I pride myself on recognizing and avoiding these things (perhaps too much, given these situations), it just shows you how anyone can be manipulated.
Let’s talk about the one involving a major sale of Taschen art books. You have seen these coffee table beauties, they typically are quite expensive and cover a wide range of art (including movies and art posters). There was an ad running through my Facebook feed (a sample shown below) that promised all sorts of things, such as “to make room for new editions and updated print runs, we’re clearing a limited selection of archive titles from our warehouse.” Clicking on the ad’s “Shop Now” buttons brought you to an attractively designed page that showed book covers and sale prices that were around $5 a book. There were several warning signs that I ignored, because I was so excited about getting some bargain books: First, paltry descriptions. Second, the domain was a .shop one that didn’t seem to have any relationship with any Taschen brand itself. And the FAQ page looked like it had been written with AI, certainly not on the level of quality that I knew this publishing house was known for.
Now, you can find these books in many used book stores, and they go for at least $25 a piece . But I was blinded by the bargains and so I proceeded to order three books. With shipping, it came to about $30 total. Enter my credit card, and wait — the card was rejected. The name of the vendor was khdfaienceflume. The company was based in Hong Kong, and the purchase was originally in HK$. Okay, something phishy here. I went back and looked up the domain, where I found it was registered a week ago. (Big red flag.) Taschen is based in Germany, btw. So i was saved by my credit card company’s fraud screen. I should have seen these warning signs, and should have followed the cardinal rule: if someone is selling something so cheap that is too good to be true, it probably is.
My second scam was a lot more involved, and it took me a week to figure it out. I got an email from Deven saying that “he was on Spotify and came across my2023 podcast interview.” He claimed to be able to help place me with interviews on other “big-name podcasts,” and mentioned the names of some of his clients that he has helped in the past. None of the names meant anything to me, but I figured what the heck and booked some time with him the following week. All seemed on the up and up until I started getting more than a dozen messages and texts suggesting that I watch some of his promotional hints and tips to making more money doing podcasts, leading up to the day of our eventual virtual meeting. I was starting to get annoyed, but I was eager to hear more about his “sure fire methods.”
Again, I was blinded by the “make money fast” message and missed a few of the cues: some slight misspellings in his messages, the lack of any actual pricing for his services (other than hints that he was expensive), and a failure to check out any of the “big name” clients. I actually connected to the pre-arranged meeting but Deven was a no-show. Then I started investigating: After checking into his clients’ websites, they all shared a common thread: they make a lot of money, they don’t show pricing, and they also don’t have contact info. It all was an elaborate hoax. (You can see a partial screenshot of one of these clients here.) All of the clients had very attractive websites that reflected a lot of time to create their own testimonials and detailed strategies on how they can help you “earn seven figures.” Yeah, right.
I am not sure how Deven was going to get my money, but once again, a major fail.
So: take a moment before you get sucked into the phishing vortex. And let my experiences in Scamville be a potent lesson to you. I n the meantime, I guess I am back to browsing the used book stores in person too.
Meet Denver Brady, avowed serial killer and author of a book with the same title as this novel. His work forms the book-within-a-book, more of a step-by-step instruction on how to off someone and escape to do it again and again. The book is found in the novel’s primary murder victim’s hands at the start of the novel, which begins the manhunt by inspector Samantha Hansen, who is coming off compassionate leave and back on the force. Sam, as she likes to be called, is beset with loads of problems, both emotional and physical, and has trouble concentrating on clues that should be obvious to her (maybe not for all readers however) as she tries to solve the novel’s murder. She reads along the how-to book and tries to align the clues in the book with the ones she uncovers during the course of her investigation. The novel mostly takes place in and around London, and has loads of plot twists and turns, right up to its very end. I won’t give away any of these because they are deliciously put together. Many murder mysteries run out of gas towards the end but this book — or should I say the combined books — holds your attention until nearly the last page. I highly recommend 
Some wags (including Marc Benioff) have called Copilot Clippy 2.0. I don’t think that is a fair fight. We should at least bump up the version to 10.0. In many respects, Clippy was ahead of its time (
An old wax cylinder was discovered in a New Orleans attic containing a recording of a an century-old jazz pioneer. The cylinder ends up missing at the same time as an arsonist burns down the home it was last seen. The mystery widens to some unsavory characters and some interesting plot twists that weave various real locations around town, so those readers familiar with the city might enjoy the travel scenes. The double murder/arson investigation — a dead body is discovered in the burnt-out home that has been there for decades — proceeds in fits and starts, and with just the right mix of action, dialogue and suspense. I thought some of the plot points could have been described more sharply, but would recommend this mystery nonetheless. 
The title characters of 
Eric O’Neill has had an interesting career hunting down some of the worst spies and cybercriminals (he was one of the principals behind the takedown of Robert Hanssen). 