The Confidence Thief - A new literary psych-thriller from author Mary Murphy
It's almost here! Look for it in May or early June.
At just seventeen, Pearl Stewart knows abandonment—her unplanned child, a loveless mother, and rules she won’t live by. She walks away from it all with one resolve: her power will never again be taken away.
She is
The Confidence Thief...
Mary says...
“Some suspense books open with murder and mayhem.
My intention was different. I begin inside the mind of my protagonist, at the moment psychological rupture takes hold.
It’s a slow burn. The fire comes, but only after we understand how it was sparked.”
Enjoy a few excerpts below to experience the tone and texture of the writing.
All excerpts are read by Susan Wood.
The world first knew her as Pearl Stewart. It would remember her as Delilah Wolfe.
A short blurb about the book.
Back cover copy.
The struggle is real. Fireco, West Virginia.
Barely 16 when life changed entirely.
Darkness sets in…
You can run. You can’t hide.
The cards have been laid.
Handsome, but not that clever.
Meet the investigators.
About The Confidence Thief
At just seventeen, Pearl Stewart knows abandonment—her unplanned child, a loveless mother, and rules she won’t live by. She walks away from it all with one resolve: her power will never again be taken away.
Born in deep West Virginia coal country, Pearl learns early that survival means setting her own terms. Fleeing north on a Greyhound bus, she meets predatory pseudo-psychic tarot reader Aubree Meyers—and claims a new name for a new life: Delilah Wolfe. That encounter leads to a world of deception by design…a path from which she will never fully escape.
Delilah doesn’t just learn the con from Aubree—she perfects it, preying easily on grief, loneliness, and seekers of solace.
When her carefully maintained control is pushed to the brink and the law snaps at her heels, she’s forced to run. Traversing the country to stay ahead of pursuit, Delilah discovers just how far she’ll go to protect herself—and who will pay along the way.
The Confidence Thief is a taut, unsettling psychological portrait of a woman’s descent: crime fiction with literary depth and emotional intensity.
Author’s Note
For a story to be convincing, a writer must surrender much of themselves to the figures they set in motion. When a hand is too heavy, characters turn into marionettes; when we step back, their voices emerge.
I often had to silence my own moral compass to let Delilah exist truthfully on the page. That meant resisting the instinct to soften or condemn, and allowing her to stand as she is: a woman shaped by her past, by fear, by ambition, and by the constant pull of escape. The less I controlled her, the more freely she revealed herself.
She unsettled me. Shocked me. Yet that unease was the price of authenticity. Figures like Delilah don’t thrive under restraint; they insist on being seen in their contradictions, or they’ll fall silent.
This story began as part of an anthology released in 2022 (Speaking Of ). Delilah made her first appearance there, but she would not stay contained. The original work has since been greatly changed and expanded into the novel you now hold.
The Confidence Thief is the story of a woman unravelling, narcissistically indifferent to the wreckage she leaves behind. She survives by illusion, is haunted by loss, and pursued by shadows she can never escape. That paradox drew me back to her, even as her life stood in stark contrast to my own.