The ultimate caper story, novelist Clifford Irving's no-holds-barred account of the literary hoax of our time--his "autobiography" of Howard Hughes--was published in Great Britain in 1997, where it became a bestseller. But no American hardcover house would touch THE HOAX until now. One major publisher offered a $500,000 advance when the book was nearing completion, drew up the contract'then abruptly bowed out. Why? The answer is implicit in this classic...