Catch Me If You Can

Rating:
Summary: Fast,Entertaining Read About a Slimeball
Review: I had seen the movie before reading this book, so I knew the basic story. I was glad to see though,that Mr. Abagnale went right to the good stuff without trying to justify or explain himself. It was interesting that his first con was his father, charging thousands of dollars on a loaned gas card for phony repairs and pocketing the cash, and how seemingly quickly and easily his father forgave him.

His cons were amazing in their audacity and intelligence. Frank has a very sharp mind, but it soon became apparent that his greatest asset was his charisma. Everyone instantly liked this handsome and personable young man and just wanted to believe his claims. Had he been twice as smart, but half as charming, I doubt he could have pulled off everything he did.

It was easy to enjoy reading about his ripping off of large companies(Pan-Am particularly),hotels and banks, but it became less fun when he began stealing directly from everyday people. Once,lurking around a bank where he had just opened an account, he noticed people often did not put their account number on their deposit slips. Being the enterprising young man that he was, he swiped a few dozen slips and wrote HIS account number in. He then replaced the slips. When he checked his account later, he had over forty thousand dollars in his balance. He made a withdrawal and got out of Dodge.

Another such incident took place in Boston. Amazingly, on the same day he more or less conned his way out of jail, hours before the FBI arrived for him, he decided to rob a bank. Not with a gun, but with a sack and a uniform. He bought a authentic security guard uniform from the supplier, obtained a holster and (fake) gun, went to the bank, put a sign over the night deposit reading; Out of Order,Please Leave Deposit with Officer, and stood in front of it with a sack. He got over sixty thousand dollars deposited in his bag.

This is the one that really got me. He said this money was in small bills, so it's not rich businessmen he's stealing from, it's people who need the money, for rent,food,gas, and their children. And here he is smiling in their faces, patting himself on the back for being clever.

This did catch up to him,however. He eventually was caught in Montpellier,France. He had pulled numerous scams in France and the rest of Europe(all over Earth,actually) and thought to retire. I doubt his retirement would have lasted,but he is caught when one of the innumerable stewardesses he had dallied with recognized him and turned him in.

The penal system in France at that time seems to have been incomprehensibly barbaric. It was so unbelievable that I did some research on the subject to confirm it. I won't go into it here, but Frank spent a very unpleasant six months jailed in France. He was then transferred to the country club prisons of Sweden. The contrast was mind-numbing as to how two countries had such a radically different approach to incarceration. Anyway, this consideration was wasted on Frank. After his term in Sweden he was due to go to Italy, where the prisons were just as bad as in France,if not worse. The Swedish officials asked the American Embassy to revoke his passport,so he could be deported to the US instead.

This led to perhaps his most daring escape. When the plane hit the runway, Frank was in the restroom, pulling out the toilet and shimmying out the bottom of the plane. He ran off the tarmac unnoticed and used the twenty American dollars a kind female Swedish officer had given him for snacks to take a cab out of there.

Once caught in France though, Frank's luck had seemingly run out. He was recaptured,but escaped again. Very cleverly, but he just couldn't evade the authorities forever.

This is where the book ends,rather abruptly. A epilogue where it tells how he was eventually caught for good, served five years in an American penitentiary, and was let out with the understanding that he would henceforth use his powers for good would have been appreciated.

In closing, this book was highly entertaining and you can probably finish it in one day. Don't believe everything you read though. Because I wouldn't doubt that Frank is still pulling a scam of some sort. I hope he didn't make any money off the movie or new editions of this book, but he probably did. Crime can still pay for Frank Abagnale.

Rating:
Summary: Get past the first 30 pages, you'll be fine.
Review: A scan of a number of reviews, say that they found the beginning of the book to come off as very arrogant, etc. I definitely agree with this. It moves quickly enough to be interesting, but my first reaction was "he sure does like the sound of his voice."

But keep reading. While he never completely gets rid of that attitude, by the time you're 50 pages in, you're hooked (likely sooner) and the last 50 pages or so of the book are simply excellent. It's interesting to read the details of how he conned others, as well as his own code of ethics. Also, I'm sure many of these gaps have been filled, yet there are just newer and higher tech ways to scam people. The story about the stewardesses travelling with him, was just astounding. Ultimately he was punished--boy was he---and paid his debt to society. The entire story is very fast paced.

Rating:
Summary: I Was a Teenage Con Man
Review: I love a good scam, ever since I saw The Sting when it first came out. So I can't believe it took me this long to get around to reading Catch Me If You Can. I saw the movie first, and it was great. But the book is better.

Abagnale goes into great detail about how he pulled off his frauds and this really made it click for me. In spite of all the intracacies of bank ins-and-outs, for instance, the story moves fast. You just can't wait to find out how Abagnale will get away with his current scam or if he will finally get caught. He actually does spend some time in prison and even that is fascinating, if a more than a little gritty.

Even if you've seen the movie, you will want to read this book, because the stories Abagnale tells are a notch better than the ones in the film, if only because things get condensed in a movie. The story of how he recruited a phony batch of stewardesses for a European tour, which was a good scene in the movie, was much better in the book

Rating:
Summary: Frank W. Abagnale: One Captivating Story From Page One!
Review: When you start reading Frank W. Abagnale's thrilling autobiography, it is hard to believe the events actually happened. But indeed they did. Typically, an autobiography will contain many slow narratives that are rather dull.

Abagnale is anything but dull. Born with an IQ clearly higher than the average man, he always was focused on getting around the rules--first, with his dad's credit card. It is clear that the beginning stages of his life of crime started when he was able to successfully get away with small infractions such as these. Later, Abagnale would resort to check fraud, and due to the lax restrictions on checks, get away with it. An ample lesson to banks and security experts: always try to think of every possible scenario because someone will exploit the situation.

The fact that he was able to get onto airlines, without paying, and sit in the cockpit is a sign that there have been many loopholes in our national airline security for quite some time. Now, Abagnale is no terrorist, but as the book explains, this still does not excuse the airlines for allowing mistakes of this sort to go through. It shows the incompetence of our bureacracies and that little has been done since this book has come off the press.

Even more ironic, and perhaps most damning to professors in our "higher learning" institutions, is that he was able to be a professor and gain wide recognition from the students. This is an indication that our professors really don't have any special expertise and merely read and paraprase what they are told. This is a damaging book to all those in authority--it a sign that one single individual, with a mission, is able to exploit the weakneseses out of our collective incompetence and stupidity. Yet, of course there is a consequence for the individual who engangse in these acts.

The French apparently have lousy prison systems, a surprise considering their typical weak image. Perhaps that is just hypocritical of our "friends" the French. But, I knew that Sweden's prison system had to be pretty much like a hotel. Look at the country: considering that Sweden is one large welfare state, it made sense that it would extend to the prison suite, too.

There was a lot of thought placed into this book. When reading it, you can almost feel the FBI agents running to finally catch Abagnale. . . and when they do, it's quite ironic how they let him get away--yet again.

I am glad, however, that Abagnale is a productive member of our society and is providing security information to private companies and the federal government. It takes a person who had lived such a life to help us solve today's incredible crimes.

Michael Gordon

Rating:
Summary: Something is Fishy!
Review: "Catch Me If You Can" is a surprisingly depressing tale. Due to the relative popularity of the movie, many know the plot: A young high school dropout, Frank Abagnale, far "older", wiser and street smart than his years impersonates a pilot of the dearly departed Pan American Airways. An expert, self -taught identity forger and con man par excellence he uses his fake Pan Am ID as a base to cash millions of dollars in phony checks. He goes on to impersonate a phony pediatrician, fake college professor and pseudo lawyer. I may have left a phony profession out. Whatever it was, Mr. Abegnale is a fraud. If he were a happy go lucky fellow or at least an average but desperate nice guy, a reader could route for or identify with him. But since almost no one has his absurdly high level of cunning and conning, what is there to identify with? He came across as a miserable, unhappy guy, always one step ahead of the law. In the interests of never revealing an ending, all this reviewer can report is that Abegnale is fingered in France by a former flight attendant. Does he repay his debt to several societies around the world? Read "CMIYC" and find out but not on this recommendation. Some guys are just too slick and too quick and too cool for their own good. The main character of "CMIYC" is one of them.

Rating:
Summary: The only book I have purchased twice.
Review: This is a great book. In the eighties, when this came out in paperback, I purchased it and read it in less than a week. I looked for my old copy, couldn't find it and then recently purchased a hard cover copy of this book again. It is the same enjoyable read it was in the eighties. For those looking for an enjoyable read, this book is it. The movie pales in comparison to the actual book, since many of the most humorous stories are left out of the movie. One example is the bank deposit box being broken, and please deposit your money with the fake security guard. What a laugh. This should have been put in the movie.
Abagnale is a true con and this book is so well written. For a true adventure story that flows smooth, this is a great book. I recommend this book--Five plus stars.

Rating:
Summary: Very Entertaining!
Review: This book really got me from the start. The author's excellent narrative style made for a fun read. He also uses metaphors very skillfully throughout, and some of the more humorous ones even made me laugh out loud.
I had a hard time putting it down at times. The intelligence of this guy to pull some of this stuff off is incredible! I don't condone or justify stealing and lying, but the stories are amazing nonetheless.
Read the book! I promise you'll be entertained at the true adventures of this young man.

Rating:
Summary: A real escapade -- but not all my questions were answered
Review: After seeing the movie, I bought and quickly read the book. I had to discover what parts of the movie were true, and which were made up. And so I discovered what other things the little stinker had done!

Of course you gotta admire him: walking into Pan AM and stealing envelopes -- herding fake stewardesses around Europe -- pretending to be a security guard and thus taking in all that cash -- one clever idea after another. The book is great fun, because it goes far beyond the movie in explaining how he set up the various scams.

What I had hoped to learn, though, but was disappointed not to see, were the answer to a few questions: How does a man like this decide NOT to continue with the scams? The realization that he was hurting people was part of it, but I would have liked to have seen more. And how does a man who was going to bed with so many broads, suddenly change his ways to become a steady husband (assuming he has)? How on earth does he get some woman to trust him?

Rating:
Summary: Cunning, but oh so clever!
Review: By now everyone has at least seen the DreamWorks picture or heard of Frank Abagnale, the real fake, but a person would be really missing out if they stopped there. I had seen the movie a few months ago and although it was great (I'm a sucker for charming con men), the book blows it out of the water!

Catch Me if You Can is a captivating book. I honestly could not put it down and ended up losing sleep a few nights ago because I did not want to stop reading it! I know that most people preface their positive reviews of this book with anti-crime speeches, but to tell you the truth, this story made me secretly WANT to be a con artist! Frank Abagnale, Frank Williams (whoever he was that week) was so clever, calm & collected-how can you not want to emulate that persona!

I'm not saying that I'm going to ditch my current identity and live my life on the run, but I am saying that this book is so well written and the story is told so vividly, it was a pleasure to lose myself for a few hours while reading it. I recommend it to anyone who revels in reading about crafty and incredibly bright people.

Rating:
Summary: Page turner
Review: If you have seen the movie, and read the book, then you know that even though the movie is decent, it doesn't hold a candle to the book. This is a work of genius. Focus on The Family radio played Frank Abagnale's testimony, and it sounds almost unbelievable, but there's things in here that you can't talk about and just make up to talk about. I read the chapter about the French prison system. To just imagine the conditions of being confined like that, WHEW! The most accurate part in the movie had to be when he impersonated a doctor, and when it came down to it, went before a medical board, answered a few questions (which the movie didn't show), and became not only a pediatrician, but the head pediatrician down south in a hospital. Amazing book.