For readers who prefer their true crime blended with history, for fans of Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief or Catch Me if You Can, and for those readers who cannot get enough of profiles like those on Fake Heiress Anna Sorokin, or the lying author Dan Mallory (WOMAN IN THE WINDOW)
The latest book by the award-winning biographer Adam Sisman (whose prizes include the NBCC for biography). Sisman's last book was the very well-received JOHN LE CARRE: THE BIOGRAPHY

Bookseller Praise for The Professor and The Parson

"At a time when shameless deception and transparent grifting are front of mind, it is especially interesting to follow the ignoble career of Robert Parkin Peters, who lied about his academic and religious qualifications for fifty years across five continents. Adam Sisman's richly detailed account is unlike so many other stories of con men that celebrate them as antiheroes, instead this tale of decades of continual fraudulence and inevitable discovery as a sham makes clear that a lifelong commitment to mendacity must confine one to an exhausting squalor. The book's scope allows both author and reader to really ponder the unknowable psychology of a man driven to deceive." -Keith Mosman, Powell's Books (Portland, OR)

"This is the most incredible academic hoax story I have ever encountered. Robert Parkin Peters, a defrocked parson without much education, spent his life claiming to be an ordained minister with a series of prestigious degrees. He lied his way into teaching positions at universities and schools all over the world. (He also lied his way into at least eight marriages-and spent time in jail for bigamy.) Utterly remorseless, Peters was revealed as a fraud again and again, but he kept trying anyway. Sisman's gripping account of Peters's life not only chronicles the many twists and turns of his career, but also illustrates how certain weaknesses in academia and the Church of England allowed Peters to succeed in his lies." -Julia Schwartz, Literati Bookstore (Ann Arbor, MI)

"This is an utterly wild book, a Catch Me If You Can-esque adventure of academia and clergy. This is a story of a man named Robert Parkin Peters and his remarkable doggedness, narcissism, and just pure astonishing determination to lie and cheat his way into seemingly every single academic and clerical post in the world. He got found out again and again, and yet managed to escape and resurface elsewhere. Add to that charges of bigamy and multiple deportations, and you have one of the wildest biographies of someone you might be happy you never knew. Sisman deftly takes you through all the sudden twists of the story without making your head spin." -Anton Bogomazov, Politics and Prose Bookstore (Washington, D.C.)