Intended to serve as a supplemental text for classes on probability theory and related topics, it covers cases where a mathematical proposition might seem to be true but actually turns out to be false.
Robert W. Hayden, reviewing the book for the Mathematical Association of America, found it unsuitable for reading cover-to-cover, while recommending it as a reference for "graduate students and probabilists...the small audience whose needs match the title and level.
"[3] D. R. Grey gave it a positive evaluation as a reference text while noting that the counterexamples it includes range "from those accessible to first-year undergraduates ... to those only comprehensible to specialists in stochastic processes".
[4] Richard Durrett gave a more negative review, saying that "Most readers will learn a few interesting things" but regarding most of the counterexamples to be well-known or redundant.
While Durrett appreciated the illustrations by A. T. Fomenko,[5] the more positive review by F. W. Steutel did not, calling them a "rather unhappy cross" between Dalí and Escher.