The Liar’s Playbook: A Memoir of Family and Crime

Entrepreneur Bradford-Scott debuts with a stranger-than-fiction account of growing up in Ontario and Florida as the daughter of a career criminal. Though Bradford-Scott’s father, Jean Claude Garofoli, was ostensibly a jeweler, the author learned of his criminality at age 12 in 1977, when she stepped off the school bus to find police cars on her lawn. Instead of explaining the scene, Bradford-Scott’s mother bundled her into her grandmother’s car and announced they’d be moving to Florida while her father handled some “business.” In the late ’80s, Garofoli went to prison on drug trafficking charges, and Bradford-Scott made peace with his legacy. Decades later, however, Bradford-Scott’s mother presented her with a binder containing a manuscript her father had written behind bars. Reading it revealed that Garofoli’s shady dealings went far deeper than she realized, and may have included helping the CIA fund the Contras in Nicaragua. Eventually, Bradford-Scott found closure by expressing her complicated feelings in letters she addressed to Garofoli after his death (“Your legacy isn’t just in the challenges I’ve had to overcome; it’s in the courage I’ve developed to keep moving forward”). Propulsive and emotionally nuanced, this satisfies. (May)