Peter Hancock is Provost Distinguished Research Professor, Pegasus Professor, and Trustee Chair in the Department of Psychology and the Institute for Simulation and Training at the University of Central Florida. He also directs the MIT2 Laboratory, which researches human factors psychology. He is the author or editor of twenty books, including Performance under Stress (2008); Mind, Machine and Morality (2009); and the award-winning historical text Richard III and the Murder in the Tower (2009).

• 1. The tangled web; 2. Case one: the Cross of King Arthur; 3. Case two: Drake's Plate of Brass; 4. The psychology of deception; 5. Case three: the Kensington Runestone; 6. Case four: the Vinland Map; 7. Deciding on deception; 8. Case five: the Piltdown Man; 9. Case six: the Shroud of Turin; 10. Deception redux; 11. Summary: hoax springs eternal.

'The book is not just a scientific Fedora-fueled foray into intriguing artefacts. It is a gift of knowledge and long-bottled passion, something everyone should read for work or for pleasure and a text that would not be out of place next to other great tomes on your bookshelf.' Anjum Naweed, Ergonomics