Dan Mallory, who writes under the pseudonym A.J. Finn became a best-selling author with his 2018 debut thriller, The Woman in the Window. Before his success as an author, Mallory worked as an editor for several publishing houses both in New York and London. In Feb 2019, The New Yorker published an article written by Ian Parker, which exposed a web of lies and deceptions spun by Mallory himself. For years before his novel was published, Mallory spent his time taking advantage of the publishing industry and the colleagues who trusted him. 

The author claimed in an essay submitted with his application to Oxford’s prestigious New College that his mother died of cancer and that his brother had also died in his care. He claimed to have written a dissertation about Patricia Highsmith, the author of the Tom Ripley novels, while at Oxford. The New Yorker article revealed that Mallory never completed his dissertation, despite having once signed emails as “Dr. Daniel Mallory.” He’s never published scholarly work on Highsmith, either. Further into his career, he claimed that he had surgery for a brain tumor. Later his father confirmed that Mallory never had cancer, despite the fact that he missed work for the supposed high-risk surgery. In a statement to ABC News’ “Good Morning America,” Mallory blamed his deception on a 2015 bipolar II diagnosis.