Book Description

This memoir from a woman duped by a criminal posing as an heiress is “a tale of love and loyalty gone awry [that] will keep fans of true crime reading” (Library Journal). Aspiring actress Meili Cady left small-town Washington State for the glamorous lure of Los Angeles. Young and alone, she was struggling to make her big break. Then she met Lisette Lee. Calling herself the “Korean Paris Hilton,” Lisette claimed she was a model and a Korean pop star, lived in a $1.2 million dollar apartment in West Hollywood, owned a fleet of luxury cars, and flitted from one red-carpet event to the next. The connection was instant. Meili was enchanted by her friend’s extravagant lifestyle, while Lee claimed Meili was the real thing in a town full of phonies. Soon, the financially strapped Meili became her friend’s personal assistant—and found herself sucked into an audacious criminal enterprise. But when Meili finally realized what she was a part of it was too late—she was in too deep, caught in a terrifying relationship with a manipulative and abrasive con artist smuggling millions of dollars of pot into the Midwest. Trapped in a precarious criminal world of money, drugs, and dangerous secrets, Meili struggled to understand the line between truth and lie. A once naive girl, she could only watch helplessly as it all came crashing down around her. Smoke is her story—an electrifying tale of vice, corruption, hubris, and lost innocence. “Cady sends you careening down a rabbit hole where bad decisions are met with good humor . . . and a duffel bag stuffed with six-figures in cash.” —Allie Kingsley, author of The Liar, the Bitch and the Wardrobe