Author who lied over cancer shortlisted

Controversial author Dan Mallory has been nominated for the British Book Awards despite revelations that he lied about having cancer.

Mallory is shortlisted in the crime category for the bestselling thriller The Woman in the Window, which he published under the pseudonym AJ Finn. However, Mallory’s facility for fiction extended to his own biography. He admitted that he lied when he claimed to have had brain cancer.

The New Yorker magazine exposed a pattern of fabrications about the writer’s health as he rose up the ranks in publishing. Mallory admitted that “onnumerousoccasionsinthe past, I have stated, implied or allowed others to believe that I was afflicted with a physical malady instead of a psychological one: cancer, specifically”.

Harpercollins stood by the author, who said he struggled with bipolar disorder and was “sorry to have taken, or be seen to have taken, advantage of anyone else’s goodwill”. The revelations did not prevent The Woman in the Window selling two million copies.