May is an unreliable narrator, so it’s left up to the reader to decide what to think about her actions leading up to the trial. We are shown her childhood, her first affair, and her subsequent relationships and travel from her birthplace of Menominee, Michigan, to Chicago, New York City, London, several cities in Europe, Shanghai, and Tokyo. Author Maryka Biaggio takes the basic facts known about Dugas and uses a flashback structure to let May tell her life story in between scenes of the trial. Parlor Games is an intriguing and well-researched fictionalization of the life of May Dugas, famous for her 1917 extortion trial. Unfortunately, Reed Doherty is never far behind and continues to track May in a delicious cat-and-mouse game as the newly minted Baroness’s misadventures take her from San Francisco to Shanghai to London and points in between.

Unflappable May quickly rebounds, elevating seduction and social climbing to an art form as she travels the world, eventually marrying a wealthy Dutch Baron. Insinuating herself into Chicago’s high society, May lands a well-to-do fiancé-until, that is, a Pinkerton Agency detective named Reed Doherty intervenes and summarily foils the engagement. Circumstances force her to take up residence at the city’s most infamous bordello, but May soon learns to employ her considerable feminine wiles to extract not only sidelong looks but also large sums of money from the men she encounters. In 1887, at the tender age of eighteen, May ventures to Chicago in hopes of earning enough money to support her family. Parlor Games by Maryka Biaggio is a historical novel based on the real-life exploits of turn-of-the-century con artist May Dugas (available January 15, 2013).