The Liar's Playbook

A Memoir of Family and Crime

By: Leslie Bradford-Scott

The remarkable, true story of an unusual childhood, complete with gangsters, guns, diamonds, drug smuggling, and fraud—just like any other little girl’s life.

At twelve years old, Leslie Bradford-Scott watched police cars swarm her family’s suburban home in Ontario. Hours later, she, her mom, and her grandmother were fleeing across the border into Florida with no explanation and no questions allowed. In an instant, her idyllic childhood turned into a maelstrom of grift, guns, and tragedy.

Decades later, Leslie’s mother handed her a blue binder—her father’s secret prison manuscript dubbed the Liar’s Playbook. Inside was a confession to trafficking goods, running arms, and playing both sides between international intelligence and the mafia. For most of her life, Leslie believed her father was a drug dealer with delusions of grandeur. Instead, she discovered a shadow world of espionage, organized crime, and explosive family secrets, including her father’s claim that he smuggled jewels to fund CIA-backed operations for the Contras. Her investigation leads to Hamilton’s violent “Bomb City” era, where mobsters like the Musitanos settled scores with dynamite, and some of the blood trails lead straight to her family.

Part true-crime thriller, part intimate memoir, The Liar’s Playbook tracks a daughter’s search for truth through unreliable memories, corrupt intelligence agents, and the long echo of her father’s double life. As she pieces together what really happened, Leslie must ask the one question that still haunts her: Can you forgive someone whose actions nearly destroyed you?

Critic reviews

“How well do we really know those closest to us, and is the truth better left unknown? The Liar’s Playbook explores one woman's family dynamics when it comes to lies, memories and ethics. But what impressed me most was the author’s resilience as she faced countless challenges, often feeling like and treated like a stranger within her own family. A memorable read!”
— CEA SUNRISE PERSON, author of North of Normal and Nearly Normal