While researching her article on telephone fraud (“The Grandparent Scam“), Shirley Streshinsky interviews a “grandparent” scammer who was awaiting sentencing in a federal prison. After hearing his tale of how the operation works, she realized, “Nothing in my friends’ experiences could prepare them for how slick these guys are at emotional blackmail.” Streshinsky is a magazine journalist, novelist, and biographer. Her most recent book, An Atomic Love Story: The Extraordinary Women in Robert Oppenheimer’s Life, written with historian Patricia Klaus, was published in September 2013.
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