The Brain of the Victim. How Scammers and Liars Manipulate Us

How could "absolutely normal" people, descendants of French aristocrats, turn into psychologically crushed paupers, giving a fraudster everything: more than 5 million euros, an ancestral castle, and their own will?

This book is a shocking confession of Christine de Védren, who welcomed Thierry Tilly into her home—a man who presented himself as a friend, financial genius, and savior. For ten years, he kept eleven members of her family in an invisible prison, convincing modern and educated people that they were heirs of a secret society being hunted. He wove a skillful web of lies, and being at the heart of it, they voluntarily gave him everything.

How could this happen? The answer to this question is provided by Daniel Zagury, who served as an expert witness in this case that shocked all of France. He not only wrote the preface to this memoir but also allowed the inclusion of the conclusions of his official expertise, in which he studied the mindset of the criminal and revealed the psychological mechanisms that led his victims to believe and do the unthinkable.

This is a terrifying, true story of mental slavery, proving that anyone of us can fall into such a trap.

Daniel Zagury is the leading forensic psychiatrist in France, senior expert of the Paris Court of Appeal.