How to disappear -- How to be found -- The canoe man -- The believers -- Collateral damage -- Faking my death with Mr. Clean and Mr. Bean.

Is it still possible to fake your own death in the twenty-first century? With six figures of student loan debt, Elizabeth Greenwood was tempted to find out. She set off on a foray into the world of death fraud, where for $30,000 a consultant can make you disappear - but your suspicious insurance company might hire a private detective to dig up your coffin only to find it filled with rocks. Greenwood tracks down a man who staged a kayaking accident and then returned to live in his own house while all his neighbors thought he was dead. She talks to people contemplating pseudocide, and gathers intel on black market morgues in the Philippines. She learns that love is a much less common motive than money, and that making your death look like a drowning virtually guarantees you'll be caught. (Disappearing while hiking, however, is a great way to go.) An investigation into our all-too-human desire to escape from the lives we lead, and the men and women desperate enough to lose their identities - and their families - to begin again.