Vulture.com has dubbed it The Summer Of Scam, and with a handful of sisters very much doing it for themselves, I've got your essential longform long-cons reading list. Later, we'll take a trip through the-blotter.com's archives with fake Rockefellers, French nationals in over their heads, and other grifty tramps and thieves in the Cold Case section. Lock down those last fours of your Socials: it's an all-new The Blotter Presents.

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A look back into the archives, and some reading recommendations.

SHOW NOTES

Produced by, among others, national treasure Viola Davis, The Last Defense is the latest limited series to focus on death-row inmates who may have cases for new trials. The show hasn't gotten to Julius Jones yet, but based on its approach to the Darlie Routier investigation and trial, Dan Patrick Brady and I are looking forward to keeping up with the show during our vacation: there's some over-arty slo-mo, but there's also insightful talking-head interviews with one of my favorite Texas Monthlycrime reporters; excellent access to most of the parties involved in Routier's trial; and a compelling construction that kept one impatient side-Googler in the household from spoiling herself on the case's particulars.

The Smithsonian Channel premiered a documentary special on Prohibition last week, and while my guest Toby Ball and I learned a lot of new cocktail recipes, we also kind of couldn't figure out who the show is for -- heritage-drinks fans? history buffs? the collectibles market? It's a serviceable show, but superfluous, because...

De Lestrade and his team return once more with three new episodes of prestige-true-crime forerunner The Staircase, and Stephanie Early Green returns to discuss the end of the story. Did it need three more episodes? Does it do what it thinks it does in terms of casting Michael Peterson and his family as sympathetic, and Kathleen Peterson's sisters as obsessed harpies -- or the opposite? One of our theories of the case has changed somewhat since the last time we contemplated this twisty case, but as David Rudolf says, we just don't know. And like David Rudolf, we're about done thinking about this.

Joe Berlinger returns with another limited series, this one -- Wrong Man, on Starz -- looking into possible wrongful convictions; Eve Batey returns to The Blotter Presents to talk about the all-star team assembled to look into these cases. Which attorney do we predict will go on to host her own show? Is Ron Kuby getting soft(er) in his old age? Would we watch a show that just ran footage of investigators Joe and Ira on stake-outs? And what is with that detective's pajama pants?

Dan Patrick Brady's back for a look at ID's latest miniseries, Dead North, which follows Upper Peninsula police chief Laura Frizzo in the search for a missing man, through a bizarre love quadrangle, to a gruesome discovery while filming in the woods...and a possible woman serial killer. It's not your average true-crime fare, and might have worked better as a podcast, but Dan and Sarah are in for Dead South should it become a thing. We're decidedly LESS eager to eat barbecued foods we didn't pack into the party ourselves, however.

Abuse Of Power is a professionally made, serviceable, and superfluous Teevee True-Crime Product that actually does a couple things well, or at least notably. But does it need to exist? Or does it just need to exist under another name? Dan Patrick Brady is back to talk about bad acting, sad cops, and Fred Tokars's similarities to Donald J. Trump.

The unfortunate Brian Wells walked into a bank in 2003 with a bomb around his neck; grabbed a lollipop from the counter; and set off (so to speak) a chain reaction of mayhem that led investigators back to a pair of "masterminds" who may have outsmarted themselves instead of law enforcement. Netflix's four-part docuseries Evil Genius drops Friday May 11 (so, warning: this section may contain spoilers), and returning guest Toby Ball and I watched two screeners and can't wait to see how the rest of the story unfolds. How much did Wells know? Is Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong really a black (common-law) widow? Does the latest true story from the Duplass bros have the same excellent build, but frustrating info gaps, as Wild Wild Country?