Will Shea is enjoying his time at Connaughton Academy, getting a fine education, and taking part in this prestigious and wealthy high school. His parents are missionaries and he himself is an “orphan from a small island called Ebeye in the Marshall Islands”. All is well for this poor child.
Well, that is until his lie is discovered. The story is a lie. A con. Will conned his way into the academy through the use of his clever and trickster tactics. His troublemaking father is actually living in New Jersey, someone Will wants to escape from and create a new life for himself. His discoverer is fellow student Andrea. But things get complicated when another interesting fact is discovered: Andrea has conned her way into the academy as well—and she isn’t happy that there’s a new kid on her block; this is her school and there’s only room for one con artist.
So they make an agreement. The first person to get $50,000 out of Con Academy’s biggest, wealthiest, and most obnoxious bully gets to stay at the school. The loser has to leave. And so the race begins.
Will starts with calling up his Uncle Roy to help him set up an online poker scam. His plan: get Brandt, the bully, to win big in a poker game against Will, and in the last round, Will collects his winning prize (by cheating, of course). Andrea takes a slightly different tactic: romance. Andrea slides her way into Brandt’s slimy heart and becomes his girlfriend. She tries to manipulate him into donating to a “charity”, surely a worthy cause—her worthy cause. $50,000 for a filthy rich kid like Brandt is no bigger than some mere pocket change. But the real challenge is who will be able to squeeze it out of Brandt first, and crown themselves the king or queen of Connaughton Academy.
Things become a little more complicated when the cons turn out to be far more complicated than the two anticipated; they must create and follow extremely intricate lies while trying to sabotage each other at the same time. On top of all of that, Will falls for Gatsby, the girl of his dreams. This heightens the stakes and makes this race more than just a competition. Will wants to stay, and he wants to stay badly. Andrea isn’t about to get kicked out of her home, the place that she has claimed first. Neck to neck, at a leg breaking pace, the race of the con artists has begun.
