Book Review: Catch Me If You Can

That's right.  Long before this was a movie, it was a book.  A very good book.

I started reading this book when I had shingles last October, but didn't finish because I was absorbed spending most of my bed-ridden days watching seasons of "Lie to Me."

I picked it back up again in November when my computer went kaput.  The first 25% or so was kind of slow, and I spent most of it thinking, "Well that is different than the movie."  Frank's dad isn't a sleaze in real life.  Frank started stealing to be able to fuel an addiction, of sorts.  Frank wasn't even an only child...  On and on, and then suddenly I couldn't put it down.  I love books like that.

I won't drop any more spoilers, but let me just say that the escapades recanted in the book are so so much more interesting and exhilarating than those in the movie.  It was fascinating.  There were several times I was like, "No way!  That'll never work," and it did.

A little bit through you start to have a fit of conscious that you're constantly cheering for the criminal, but you just can't help yourself.  Frank himself seems to acknowledge this tension, and a couple of times he remarks that he deserved the harsh things that happened to him more than the breaks he got (see the "Q&A with the Author" for his thoughts about prisons in France).

But on a scale of 1-10, I give this book a 10.  I loved it.  I highly recommend it.  If you read it, let me know so I can talk to you about it and we can "ooo" and "aaah" over it together.

I tried to buy a book in the same vein to satiate my hunger when I finished this one, and ended up coming across Priceless:  How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman and John Stiffman.  It was good, but more on that in my next post...

Catch Me If You Can:  The Real Story of a True Fake

by Frank Abignale, Jr. and Stan Redding

Chapters:

1. The Fledgling
2. The Pilot
3. Fly a Crooked Sky
4. If I'm a Kid Doctor, Where's My Jar of Lillipops?
5. A Law Degree Is Just and Illegal Technicality
6. PaperHanger in a Rolls-Royce
7. How To Tour Europe On a Felony A Day
8. A Small Crew Will Do-It's Just a Paper Airplane
9. Does This Tab Include the Tip?
10. Put Out an APB- Frank Abignale Has Escaped!
    Afterword and Q&A with the Author