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

Fun to read An fairly interesting like the film, Good to note if these exact efforts were made in 2023 Frank would have been caught in week one.

The subtitle to this book is "The True Story of a Real Fake," but should it be retitled as "The Fake Story of a Real Truth"? I don't know, and neither does anyone except the author.I backed into this book after watching the movie and DVD extras, including an interview with the author, Frank Abagnale. The book itself is a quick read. Between the movie and the book, I still don't know if I know the full story, or which version(s) are closer to the truth. After all, Mr. Abagnale is a bonafide con man. How many times can the sky be falling before you ignore the warnings?If the book retells an incredible story, why the downgrade to only three stars? Because I felt slimy reading the book. Not because of the story. Not because of the constant bragging about his promiscuity. Not because of the unspoken issues. No, I felt cheap and tawdry because the book spews a constant supply of bizarre and awkward similes that would otherwise appear in salacious dime novels. Throw in some obscure terms that seem to come straight from the thesaurus, and the result is a book that seems as if the writer is trying to prove (con?) that he is much smarter than he really is.You will encounter these weird similes with such frequency that you will cringe in anticipation of the next one. Here's just a random one that will leave you feeling weird or yucky: "I knew that the uniform would attract girls like a buck rub lures a doe." Take out all of the salacious statements I would have upgraded the rating to at least four stars.

He was indeed a pretty smooth criminal in the truest sense of the word. He seems to offer this story in a voice that was apparently playing inside his head at the time, which is an ironic, self-serving and despicable voice. It's a voice that allowed him to rationalize anything that stood in his way of living a unique criminal life.My curiosity was aroused to read this book after I have seen the movie a while back. Having read the entire book, I can say with absolute certainty that the movie doesn't even scratch the surface.Regardless of how much former criminals like Frank claim they changed, it is always best to take their version of the story with a grain of salt. After all, Frank even made a promise in tears to the judge who saved his life in Sweden and then broke his word on the way back home. The judge in Sweden single-handedly saved his life when it was on the line and gave him a second chance to make a new beginning.However, I will give him credit though for going into great detail about how he went about planning and executing his tricks on his victims. I was assuming that he would just barely touch upon those things and not disclose his entire game plan in such great detail. What is also so remarkably unique and interesting about Frank is that he did it all by himself. And he was incredibly young!I couldn't possibly end this brief comment without mentioning the unbelievably inhumane treatment he got in prison that he was thrown in while he was in France. The treatment Frank got while serving his sentence in France reminded me of the death camps in Nazi Germany. He was forced to survive in utter darkness in an incredibly tiny prison on his own with no clothes and was not even given anything to eat on some days. It's hard to fathom that prison conditions and the treatment the prisoners got in France could be so disgustingly inhumane at the time. It's a miracle that Frank made it out alive.

The movie fell way short of the actual story in the book. The movie highlighted some of his most amazing scams, but the book also shows how he learned to scam better and more proficient so he could get away with taking mostly banks for even more. He also finally was caught, but the reality was far worse than what was hinted at in the movie. He spent a long time locked in a dungeon in France with guards as the only humans he might see. It was pretty gruesome. The book also covers his problems trying to live a straight life when his record made it almost impossible to get even minimum wage work. How eventually his inside knowledge was what made it possible for him to get paid to give banks seminars about their vulnerabilities, and how that led to a very successful carrier in teaching and changing security in the way security is handled all over the world. All that funny money we all carry...Those were basically his ideas to make money hard to reproduce on high quality printers.This is really a damn good book. I bought his second book thinking it would continue the story from the first book, but it doesn’t do very much of that. His second and subsequent books are all guides for both personal and business securities. Which is good none the less

Some incidents appeared to me as unreal- it appears that it was too easy to con anybody at any time.

Para los que sepan bien Inglès, este libro va mas allá de la película. Más detalles, historia distinta, carcel de Francia mucho peor que en la película, estafas mas grandes, por todo el mundo occidental, incluyendo españa.Lo aconsejo

L'articolo è arrivato nei tempi previsti. In perfette condizioni si presenta il libro autobiografico entusiasmate Catch me if you can di Frank J. Abagnale. Sono veramente contento e soddisfatto.

Le livre, de prix modique, est arrivé dans les temps.Malheureusement, j'ai eu quelques difficultés dans le choix du livre. Pour ceux aux prix les plus faibles, l'achat n'était pas possible. Pourquoi ? Pas de réponse à ce problème

No words other than simply great..I am actually sad that the book finished so quick.. an awesome real story with some eye opening statements