What do you think?
Rate this book
Win a free print copy of this book!
18 days and 09:59:41
20 copies available
U.S. only
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Not yet published
Expected 14 Jul 26Win a free print copy of this book!
18 days and 09:59:41
20 copies available
U.S. only
The riveting true story of an audacious con man weaponized by the justice system who destroys dozens of lives and puts a man on death row for a murder he didn’t commit
“Incendiary, emotionally devastating. [This] is a feat of dogged reporting, bravura storytelling, and clear-eyed moral conscience."
—Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing and London Falling
For more than three decades, Paul Skalnik roamed the Gulf Coast lying about who he was. He passed himself off as a fighter pilot, a high-rolling oilman, a criminal defense attorney, an undercover agent, and a terminal cancer patient. In these guises he married nine women—some at the same time.
When Skalnik got caught, as he invariably did, he would run a different con. Locked up with other men awaiting trial, he claimed they confessed their crimes to him. Then he peddled those stories to prosecutors. In Pinellas County, Florida, he became a frequent witness for the state, thinking nothing of exaggerating men’s wrongdoing or implicating the innocent to help prosecutors win convictions. In return, the state rewarded him with his freedom, fueling his growing sense of invincibility. Soon he was not just committing fraud; he was preying on girls in their teens or barely into adolescence.
In 1985, Jim Dailey, a down-on-his-luck Vietnam veteran, was implicated in the murder of a fourteen-year-old girl and landed in the Pinellas County Jail with Skalnik. No forensic evidence or motive linked Dailey to the killing, but Skalnik’s account of his "confession" helped put Dailey on death row. Skalnik, meanwhile, walked free. More than three decades later, after another man took responsibility for the killing, Pamela Colloff, reporting for the New York Times Magazine and ProPublica, visited Skalnik and asked him if he would recant his testimony. He refused.
By then, Skalnik had caused untold to the women and girls he exploited, to the dozens of men he helped imprison, and to Jim Dailey, who went on to receive an execution date. In this mesmerizing debut, Pamela Colloff spins a dark tale of a remorseless and brilliant liar made lethal by a system more concerned with winning convictions than finding the truth.
“Incendiary, emotionally devastating. [This] is a feat of dogged reporting, bravura storytelling, and clear-eyed moral conscience."
—Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing and London Falling
For more than three decades, Paul Skalnik roamed the Gulf Coast lying about who he was. He passed himself off as a fighter pilot, a high-rolling oilman, a criminal defense attorney, an undercover agent, and a terminal cancer patient. In these guises he married nine women—some at the same time.
When Skalnik got caught, as he invariably did, he would run a different con. Locked up with other men awaiting trial, he claimed they confessed their crimes to him. Then he peddled those stories to prosecutors. In Pinellas County, Florida, he became a frequent witness for the state, thinking nothing of exaggerating men’s wrongdoing or implicating the innocent to help prosecutors win convictions. In return, the state rewarded him with his freedom, fueling his growing sense of invincibility. Soon he was not just committing fraud; he was preying on girls in their teens or barely into adolescence.
In 1985, Jim Dailey, a down-on-his-luck Vietnam veteran, was implicated in the murder of a fourteen-year-old girl and landed in the Pinellas County Jail with Skalnik. No forensic evidence or motive linked Dailey to the killing, but Skalnik’s account of his "confession" helped put Dailey on death row. Skalnik, meanwhile, walked free. More than three decades later, after another man took responsibility for the killing, Pamela Colloff, reporting for the New York Times Magazine and ProPublica, visited Skalnik and asked him if he would recant his testimony. He refused.
By then, Skalnik had caused untold to the women and girls he exploited, to the dozens of men he helped imprison, and to Jim Dailey, who went on to receive an execution date. In this mesmerizing debut, Pamela Colloff spins a dark tale of a remorseless and brilliant liar made lethal by a system more concerned with winning convictions than finding the truth.
Kindle Edition
Expected publication July 14, 2026
3 people are currently reading
4048 people want to read
About the author
Pamela Colloff
13 books36 followersPAMELA COLLOFF is a reporter at ProPublica and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine. She was the recipient of a National Magazine Award for Reporting in 2020 and for Feature Writing in 2013. Her work has been anthologized in The Best American Magazine Writing, The Best American Crime Reporting, and Next Wave: America’s New Generation of Great Literary Journalists. Colloff holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Brown University. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and their two children.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 30, 2026
This was an incredible true crime book about the murder of a young girl in Florida in the 1980s and the abhorrent reliance on a conman turned jailhouse informant.
The structure of the book is perfect: first introducing you to Paul Skalnik, the so-called informant who claimed that James Dailey confessed the murder to him in prison. The problem? Skalnik was a conman and pedophile who quickly realized he could get sweetheart deals from prosecutors by snitching on fellow inmates. The author then dives into Dailey’s background, the murder of Shelly Boggio, and the actual evidence in the case - spoiler, there’s very little evidence tying Dailey to the murder without Skalnik’s testimony.
The book is an indictment on the inherent systemic problems with capital punishment. It challenges the way prosecutors and law enforcement treat jailhouse informants and general investigations.
Unfortunately, this story doesn’t have a happy ending. Dailey is still on death row for a crime he likely did not commit. It’s an absolute tragedy but I wonder if this book will help get more publicity to the case.
The structure of the book is perfect: first introducing you to Paul Skalnik, the so-called informant who claimed that James Dailey confessed the murder to him in prison. The problem? Skalnik was a conman and pedophile who quickly realized he could get sweetheart deals from prosecutors by snitching on fellow inmates. The author then dives into Dailey’s background, the murder of Shelly Boggio, and the actual evidence in the case - spoiler, there’s very little evidence tying Dailey to the murder without Skalnik’s testimony.
The book is an indictment on the inherent systemic problems with capital punishment. It challenges the way prosecutors and law enforcement treat jailhouse informants and general investigations.
Unfortunately, this story doesn’t have a happy ending. Dailey is still on death row for a crime he likely did not commit. It’s an absolute tragedy but I wonder if this book will help get more publicity to the case.
Review of advance copy
A masterful narrative of a con man so charismatic; law enforcement officials always believed whatever he said. The events that unfolded when Jim Dailey meets Paul makes for one of the most intriguing and astonishing true-crime debuts I’ve ever read and had me on the edge of my seat the entire read.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
I tore through this book. I read it on the train to work, on the train back from work, on the platform waiting for the train, during my lunch breaks. When I was not with the book I spent all my time thinking about it.
Narrative nonfiction authors can generally be judged by two metrics: one, the story they choose to tell (esoteric or ubiquitous) and two, the way they tell it (dry or with a flourish). A victory in one can absolve a failure in the other.
Pamela Colloff has both a winning story and a winning style. Every page was a surprise, a delight, an elegy. The book testifies to Colloff’s empathy and to her refusal to concede to the easy explanations for the failures of our justice system. The structure of the book is so unbelievably elegant it’s hard to enumerate exactly how; it grounds itself in rigorous considerations of time and place, tethering the story to reality and making clarity a top consideration. This isn’t a swashbuckling story of a roguish con man. Colloff knows better than to entertain that possibility. This is a book confronting the destruction Skalnik has wreaked and continues to wreak, from beyond the grave.
I am at a loss for what to read after this.
Narrative nonfiction authors can generally be judged by two metrics: one, the story they choose to tell (esoteric or ubiquitous) and two, the way they tell it (dry or with a flourish). A victory in one can absolve a failure in the other.
Pamela Colloff has both a winning story and a winning style. Every page was a surprise, a delight, an elegy. The book testifies to Colloff’s empathy and to her refusal to concede to the easy explanations for the failures of our justice system. The structure of the book is so unbelievably elegant it’s hard to enumerate exactly how; it grounds itself in rigorous considerations of time and place, tethering the story to reality and making clarity a top consideration. This isn’t a swashbuckling story of a roguish con man. Colloff knows better than to entertain that possibility. This is a book confronting the destruction Skalnik has wreaked and continues to wreak, from beyond the grave.
I am at a loss for what to read after this.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
WOW! I was hooked from the first chapter. I kept wanting Paul Skalnik to get any kind of consequences for the destruction that he had caused in so many lives.
I was so angry that he was able to keep telling lies, no matter how outrageous. But he was a con man.
The anger is more at the lawyers and law enforcement that allowed Paul to keep conning people, to hurt people.
So many lives were destroyed over this one man and the power he held over Pinellas county.
The author is a very good storyteller. She investigates all the leads and does not let go. I appreciated the efforts that she expanded to try to get Jim a new trial, a new outcome. I felt the repulsiveness of her time with Paul.
This is the perfect true crime book and I will recommend it to everyone. 6 out of 5 stars for me!
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for this honest review .
I was so angry that he was able to keep telling lies, no matter how outrageous. But he was a con man.
The anger is more at the lawyers and law enforcement that allowed Paul to keep conning people, to hurt people.
So many lives were destroyed over this one man and the power he held over Pinellas county.
The author is a very good storyteller. She investigates all the leads and does not let go. I appreciated the efforts that she expanded to try to get Jim a new trial, a new outcome. I felt the repulsiveness of her time with Paul.
This is the perfect true crime book and I will recommend it to everyone. 6 out of 5 stars for me!
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for this honest review .
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I received a free copy of, Catch the Devil, by Pamela Colloff, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Paul Skalnik is a depraved individual. Preying on women, lying about innocent people, and being believed by people who should not of believed him. This monster got away with way more then he should of. This was an interesting read on a horrible man.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Powerful true crime tale of justice deflected in Florida. Well written and fluid, the book examines the role of one jailhouse snitch and how he shattered the life of a presumably innocent man.thanks to the author,publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
I don't know, but maybe someone is already in jail we need to use a bit more discretion in how much we trust them. This is basically the crux of Pamela Colloff's excellent Catch the Devil. Paul Skalnik is a fraud, thief, sexual predator, pedophile, and serial bigamist. He was also the favorite pet of Florida detectives and prosecutors who were trying to kill as many alleged murderers as possible. I don't know if it's the heat or the humidity, but Florida's justice system sure likes killing folk.
After Colloff does a thorough job of showing just how disgusting Skalnik is, she tells the story of how he was at least one nail in the theoretical but maybe literal coffin of Jim Dailey. For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I won't give you any more details. However, you can probably guess how the story is going to go.
Colloff makes this story a lean page turner. A journalist by trade, Colloff expertly makes this read like a novel while giving you exactly what you need without any fluff. There are no extraneous threads, no ill-placed characters, and no diatribes. I especially appreciated the last aspect. While there are some quick asides and rhetorical questions, Colloff trusts her readers to see what is happening and why it is bad for all of us. When you tell the story of how the least trustworthy man on earth can be called upon in a court of law and be believed, well, we have problems.
You don't have to be a true crime or non-fiction lover. This one is for everybody.
(This book was provided as an advanced reader copy by Knopf.)
After Colloff does a thorough job of showing just how disgusting Skalnik is, she tells the story of how he was at least one nail in the theoretical but maybe literal coffin of Jim Dailey. For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I won't give you any more details. However, you can probably guess how the story is going to go.
Colloff makes this story a lean page turner. A journalist by trade, Colloff expertly makes this read like a novel while giving you exactly what you need without any fluff. There are no extraneous threads, no ill-placed characters, and no diatribes. I especially appreciated the last aspect. While there are some quick asides and rhetorical questions, Colloff trusts her readers to see what is happening and why it is bad for all of us. When you tell the story of how the least trustworthy man on earth can be called upon in a court of law and be believed, well, we have problems.
You don't have to be a true crime or non-fiction lover. This one is for everybody.
(This book was provided as an advanced reader copy by Knopf.)
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews