Faker

The story opens as Trey and his father meet with a rich man who wants to invest in a show dog. Trey’s dad presents an immaculate and perfectly behaved Great Dane, which the rich man is eager to buy. After handing over a check, the rich man leaves, and Trey’s dad explains to his son that this is yet another of his confidence tricks. In reality, the dog is not a show dog; it has been rented from an agency that trains animals for movies. Hearing this, Trey is disappointed but unsurprised. After a lifetime of working with his dad to con rich people out of their money, he is used to his father’s schemes and doesn’t feel guilty about them. Trey’s dad has always been a good parent to him and his sister Arianna and has often explained that the “marks” don’t need all their money anyway.

Trey currently attends Spealman Academy—an expensive, exclusive boarding school in New England. He has attended several such schools over the years, befriending the students there so that his dad can then get close to their parents and enact his confidence schemes. The only disadvantage to this arrangement for Trey is that he doesn’t get to see his dad very often.