Dan Mallory, author of the bestselling thriller The Woman in the Window under the pseudonym AJ Finn, has admitted to lying about having brain cancer for years, after a lengthy New Yorker profile accused him of a long history of falsehoods around his professional history and health.
However, the New Yorker article by Ian Parker lays out a history of Mallory fabricating stories of illness and death, including that he had been diagnosed with brain cancer.
On Tuesday, several industry sources who asked to remain unidentified confirmed to the Guardian that Mallory had told them he had brain cancer while working at publisher Little, Brown in London between 2009 and 2012.
A former colleague of Mallory’s at Little, Brown also confirmed that the author had told the office that he had brain cancer as an explanation for long periods out of the office.