Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception and Injustice in the American South: 'A feat of storytelling' – Patrick Radden Keefe

by Pamela Colloff

Paul Skalnik was a prolific and ruthless conman and abuser. For more than three decades, he passed himself off as a Vietnam veteran, a college football star, a high-rolling oilman, a criminal defence attorney, an undercover FBI agent and a terminally ill cancer patient. From 1977 to 2015 he was incarcerated many times over and repeatedly used as a jailhouse informant. His bogus witness testimonies of cell confessions have sent at least four men to Death Row.

During a year-long investigation for the New York Times Magazine, Pamela Colloff determined that Skalnik was one of the most prolific, and most effective, jailhouse informants in American history. For decades he was considered the state prosecution's 'closer' witness who could smooth over a case's inconsistencies, nudging jurors past reasonable doubt.

Whenever he was released from prison he would continue his crime spree in which women were usually the collateral damage. Over four decades he was charged with 32 felonies including larceny, fraud, grand theft, the unauthorised practice of law, bail jumping, bigamy and lewd conduct. He married at least nine different women, some at the same time, and was a serial abuser of young girls.

The narrative is framed by the botched investigation of James Dailey - tried with the murder of 14 year-old Shelley Boggio. Skalnik's witness testimony helped put Dailey on Death Row.

By recounting Skalnik's lurid life, Pamela Colloff tells a larger story of injustice and the trail of broken lives he has left behind.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Crime, History, Biography, Mystery

Audible Audio

First published July 14, 2026

About the author

PAMELA 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.

Reviews

[Marieke]

DISCLAIMER: This will probably be the most biased bookreview I have ever written, because I am actually in this book. And I have known and loved one of its main characters, Jim Dailey, for over 28 years.
So yes I think it is a real good book and you should all read it, because it is an in incredible important insight in the way the American Criminal Justice System doesn't really do the Justice part justice.
I can also tell you how deeply Pamela Colloff has researched this story and how much the portrait of me but most importantly Jim is really us. I have therefor a lot of faith in the reporting of the parts I didn't know beforehand.
Also she wrote it in a way that I -who knew the whole thing firsthand- still wanted to rush through it because the story grabbed me.
I however want everyone who reads it to understand that it is real. My beloved friend at 80 years old is right now sitting in his non airconditioned cell being very anxious about this book being out. And he has been behind bars for 40 years and if you read this book you will understand how that makes no sense at all!

[Joey R.]

5.0 stars— I knew “Catch the Devil” (the new book by by Pamela Colloff) was the type of book I would love when I first read a small synopsis of what it was about in a preview of books scheduled for release in 2026. It definitely did not disappoint. I have read many books that cover the subject of innocent people convicted based on flimsy evidence whose conviction is eventually overturned leading to a happily ever after uplifting book. (The best of these by far is Anthony Ray Hinton’s “The Sun Does Shine”.) I won’t go into detail in fear of spoiling the book, but “Catch the Devil” is definitely not one of those type of books. However, what the book is- is a beautifully well done, very well researched expose of the criminal justice system’s use of informants/snitches in securing convictions in high profile cases. She does this by writing dual biographies: one for one of Florida’s most notorious and, in my opinion, unreliable snitches, Paul Skalnik, and the other for one of Paul Skalnik’s high profile convictions, Jim Dailey who was convicted of 1st degree murder primarily through the use of Skalnik’s testimony. The book begins with the life story of Skalnik but stops at the point he enters the life of Jim Dailey. The book then shifts to a portrait of Jim Daily’s life up until he meets Paul Skalnik. The book’s final section devotes itself to the story of the two men meeting and details the tragic results for Dailey that come as a result of the two’s brief confinement together in the same jail. The author does an excellent job of giving factual details of both men’s lives that make it very clear the travesty of justice that occurred and is still occurring in the court systems due to the practice of using unreliable snitches. There is no way anyone can read this book and not feel compassion and sorrow for Jim Daily. Needless to say. I was absolutely mesmerized and amazed at the path this true story took and am still shaking my head at the outcome. Do yourself a favor and read “Catch the Devil’ so that you can see for yourself how a con-artist can work the system to the detriment of truly innocent people.

[JanB]

Sometimes I come across a non-fiction book that were it fiction I’d dismiss it as requiring too much suspension of disbelief.

This is one of those books.

Paul Skalnik, a notorious con man, pathological liar, and pedophile was finally caught and sent to prison. Once there he continued his ways by becoming a jailhouse snitch in Florida for 35 cases, thereby sending multiple people to prison, and 3 to death row. In return he received leniency and special favors. Prosecutors found Skalnik so valuable in helping them secure convictions that they turned a blind eye to his crimes, including crimes against children.

But the biggest problem is Skalnik’s claims were all fabrications. There were no confessions.

One of those convicted and sentenced to death was Vietnam veteran, James Dailey, for the 1985 murder of a 14 year old girl. Skalnik’s testimony led to his conviction despite zero evidence implicating Dailey in the crime .

What follows is a harrowing tale of a completely broken justice system and the dangers of using jailhouse snitches. A jury verdict is next to impossible to overturn even when the true perpetrator admits his guilt and confesses that he acted alone. Even when new evidence is presented that would exonerate someone convicted.

I did not look up the case online and I’m glad I let the story play out as the author wrote it. So I won’t go into the details except to say, at least in the 80s, we had a system less determined to discover the truth than with winning convictions.

I was left speechless, sure that there is more to this story and this was simply a case of a murderer claiming innocence. I was wrong.

How is it possible that an innocent man remains on death row for 40 years for a crime he did not commit? His mistake was falling into the orbit of truly evil men.

My reading buddy, Marialyce, and I were completely stunned and disheartened on reading this travesty of justice, and our hearts broke for the man whose life was ruined. It makes me wonder how many other Jim Dailys exist?

* I received a digital review copy via NetGalley. All opinions are my own

[Marialyce]

Omg, I am speechless!

There are truly evil people roaming the earth and Paul Skalnik was assuredly one of them. This man was the ultimate con artist who swindled, cheated, lied incessantly , abused, and when caught would immediately start another con. He was married nine times some concurrently with other wives, and assumed many identities, a lawyer, an undercover agent, a fighter pilot, a successful oilman, and even a cancer patient who was terminal. If that wasn't bad enough, when sent to prison on numerous occasions, he claimed to have cozied up to accused murderers and then snitched on them for his own gains, clemency. and the police believed him and even would set him up near the accused so he could solicit their admissions to the crime. (mostly murder) In his demented mind, he was invincible and as such felt he could do whatever and get away with it even to the point of assaulting young girls. ...and get away with it he did!

He would embellish confessions, often lying about the men who "confessed" to him, and been the deciding factor in trials and punishments. Then Jim Dailey came along accused of the heinous murder of a fourteen year old girl. Jim was a product of the Vietnam War, having served three tours of duty, and diving into a world of alcohol drugs, and rough living. He hung around with two other men, devious as well, and one night in a somewhat convoluted telling, a girl Shelley Boggio, is murdered, and Jim is accused and convicted thanks in part by a jailhouse conviction acquired by Paul Skalnik (of course) and one of his so called friends, Jack Pearcy, who initially swore that Jim did it. Much later, Jack recanted his accusation, but refused to testify under oath in court.

Meanwhile, Jim, now in his eighties has been sitting on death row for over forty years, with his lawyers trying to secure his freedom.

This true story might just change your views on a court system that seemed to favor a liar against a man who never committed the crime. For me, it had my blood boiling and the pressure rising as I read more into this story.....talk about the miscarriage of justice!

Pamela Colloff did an excellent job of telling Paul Skalnik, Pearcy Dailey snd Jim Dailey's stories. If there is a hell both Jack and Paul Skalnik have places reserved in its very pit.

Be on the lookout for Jan's review. We were both left with sadness at the unfairness of this case. Made us wonder how many more convicted people were in prison due to the compensated snitch who would put them there in prison.

[Traci Thomas]

This is a good one. Smart to frame one con man through the death row inmate he wrongfully convicted — and put the criminal legal system on blast. Engaging prose. Sharp storytelling. It gets a bit slow on the third quarter but the end pulls it off.

[Rachel B]

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.

[Elizabeth☮]

What in the holy hell?! This book will infuriate you at the sheer idiocy of the judicial system.

The story focuses on a con-man - Paul Skalnik - who sent many men to prison in cooperation with the DA's office in Pinellas County in Florida. The first third of the book highlights his many crimes that he got away with all for the sake of offering up fake evidence to maintain a high record of cases closed.

As the narrative unfolds, we meet James Dailey. He is a Vietnam vet who spirals into alcoholism. This leads to divorce and mixing with the wrong crowd. Skalnik's testimony affects James in a way that is unacceptable. The incompetence of the many detectives and lawyers that handle James' case makes me sad for humanity.

A powerful book about what happens with too much weight on the words of one person and the inability of men to admit when they are wrong.

[Trin]

A compelling story of an enormous miscarriage of justice that is currently ongoing. Reading this made steam start pouring out of my ears. Fuck the police, fuck the death penalty, and fuck Ron DeSantis.

[Hank Stuever]

Astoundingly good, completely heartbreaking, and often infuriating -- and a Pamela Colloff book, at long last! A towering work by one of our finest American journalists. (Says someone who has admired her stories for eons, back to her arrival at Texas Monthly.)

Besides lavish praise, my only response here is that I remain endlessly fascinated by gullibility. As truly evil as Paul Skalnik was, to the core (it goes beyond criminal, despicable), what's always mind-blowing to me is how easily his prey could be found. (I don't mean the victims of his sexual assaults, obviously, a separate but just as important outrage woven into this whole story.)

I mean the women and men who were constantly charmed by him, in plentiful supply as soon as he needed someone new to replenish his schemes and reboot his identity; people who seemingly had no operable BS detector (besides their own children, who occasionally sent up warning flares and were dismissed as pouting adolescents), and never doubted his boasts, distrusted his promises, or ever started or finished the homework about their new paramour. (One of Skalnik's wives -- I lost track after seven or eight -- fell deeper into his deceit simply because she did not read the local newspaper, which had stories about his prior convictions.)

This is not victim-blaming. This is my eternal — and increasingly alarmist — desire for everyone, especially in this warped-facts society we've made, to WAKE UP and stop falling for crooks.

That includes the courts. How inmate "informant" testimony ever ascended to the level of gold-star admissible evidence in capital crime trials (or any court proceeding), and is not dismissed as unreliable hearsay, would require the law degree I do not have in order for me to fully understand.

[Angie Miale]

I dare you to read this book and not Google the names of the criminals before you finish.

Seriously. If you have the self-control to wait until the final page, you’re a much more patient person than I am.

I don’t read a ton of true crime, but Catch the Devil completely pulled me in. It reads less like a traditional crime book and more like one of those gripping Netflix documentaries where every new revelation makes you question everything that came before. Fans of Making a Murderer, The Innocence Files, or The Thin Blue Line should absolutely put this on their list.

At the center of the story is Paul Skalnik, a career con artist whose crimes extended far beyond passing bad checks. He was also a convicted child predator and serial manipulator who repeatedly avoided accountability by reinventing himself as a jailhouse informant. Over the years, he claimed that dozens of fellow inmates had confessed murders to him, eventually testifying in 37 different cases.

The unsettling part isn’t just Skalnik himself—it’s why so many people believed him.

Pamela Colloff makes a compelling case that prosecutors and law enforcement repeatedly relied on testimony they had every reason to question because it helped secure convictions. In at least one case, Skalnik’s testimony helped send a man to death row. The result is a fascinating examination of how ambition, confirmation bias, and a broken incentive system can intersect inside the criminal justice system.

What fascinated me most wasn’t the mystery of the crimes—it was the psychology. Skalnik isn’t presented as a charming rogue in the vein of Frank Abagnale. He’s a deeply manipulative, narcissistic figure who understands exactly what people want to hear and uses that knowledge to survive. The book also explores why intelligent people continue to trust someone who lies so effortlessly, and that question lingered with me long after I finished reading.

Although the book maintains a journalist’s distance from its subjects, it’s remarkably engaging. I flew through it because every chapter uncovered another layer of deception. It also reinforced my own belief that the death penalty is far more complicated than many of us want to admit. You can support accountability for violent crime while still recognizing that a justice system capable of this level of error and manipulation deserves serious scrutiny.

This wasn’t quite a personal five-star obsession for me, largely because its journalistic approach keeps the reader at a slight emotional distance. But as a meticulously researched, thought-provoking, and surprisingly compulsive work of true crime, it’s outstanding.

Thank you to Knopf for the gifted finished copy. Published July 14.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (4.5/5)

[Allison]

Rounding up from 4.8

Wow. Just wow. I don’t know about words to describe this read. Definitely a LOT of emotions.. and quite a bit of rage at what this guys victims were put through.

PHENOMENAL writing. Astronomically insane crazy good research. I swear to all that is holy and good, reporters make THE BEST non fiction writers. I swear I felt I was going through some of this with the victims, witnessing it like I was a proverbial fly on the wall as it were.

Thank you to the author and publisher for the ARC.

[MM Suarez]

“What made him so dangerous was not his intelligence or cunning, but rather how readily the institutions that were supposed to uphold the law and protect the most vulnerable had amplified his lies. These institutions indulged his pathologies, granting him power and influence he could never have achieved on his own, effectively giving him license to commit greater crimes. Without them, Skalnik would have been nothing more than a small-time con man.”

A terrific piece of investigative reporting, this book is more than the story of a con man, sex offender, and prolific jailhouse snitch Paul Skalnik, who testified against, or gave information about at least twenty-seven defendants in the Pinellas County Jail, most of which were convicted or took plea deals, with three of them facing execution. This book is also a scorching indictment of the justice system, specifically in Pinellas County, Florida in the 1980’s.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading true crime and the justice system.


How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo.—Mark Twain

[Brandice]

Catch the Devil is about a con man in jail, who served as a lying snitch for prosecutors, which reduced his own time to serve. He alleged other prisoners confessed crimes to him and used this to his advantage.

The book is also an exploration of the failure of the U.S. criminal justice system. Murder, deception, and injustice are prominent here. It’s infuriating and not surprising, particularly as key elements of the story take place in TX and FL.

Pamela Colloff did a great job sharing this story, told in narrative nonfiction format. I listened to the audiobook and there are a lot of people to keep track of, but I still recommend Catch the Devil in any format.

[Jared Kotler]

Finished the book in a day. Couldn’t put down. What a story.

[David]

4.4 stars

Highly readable and well paced, I read the book in two days.

Part I introduces the reader to the central heel of the book: Paul Skalnik, a repulsive and irredeemable stain on the human race. The author does a good job of avoiding sensationalism. She provides pertinent information to provide sufficient background for the story to come.

Part 2 introduces the sympathetic victim, Jim Dailey. A decent man damaged by his experience serving in the Vietnam war. Dailey's story, while sympathetic, feels realistic. We're presented with a flawed but goodhearted man.

As loathsome as Skalnik is I hold my greatest contempt for the people in the Pinellas County criminal justice system. Lawyers violated their duty of candor to the court and investigators incentivized prisoners to provide false testimony to win convictions. All of this to fortify the "tough on crime" fiction so prevalent in the 1980s.

This book is thematically very similar to the excellent Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town. Both are strongly recommended.

[Aileen]

Hey if you still need a reason to believe that capital punishment is not only cruel and unusual but an absolute judicial racket, please read this book (and a book I recently finished American Injustice by David Rudolf). Meticulously researched and beautifully written by Colloff; I absolutely love that she IS biased and knows (like we all should) that Jim Dailey is innocent and deserves to spend his final years at home with his family after being wrongly incarcerated on death row for over 40 years.

And I know you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead but fuck that, Paul Skalnik was an absolute piece of shit.

Also the fact that this happened in Pinellas County/Florida only makes it 10000% more believable.

[KDub]

Thank you to Knopf for the #gifted physical copy.

Omg y’all, this book.

Talk about the most frustrating showcase of white male privilege, not believing survivors/women/girls, and the absolute mess that is our freaking (in)justice system in the US.

I could not get over how much BS Paul Skalnik got away with and how much leniency he was granted. HOW MANY TIMES MUST SOMEONE COMMIT FRAUD BEFORE YOU STOP TRUSTING THEM? But no, let’s use this guy as a jailhouse informant and put people on death row because of it. This was so infuriating to read as the details kept emerging. Skalnik preyed on literally everyone he met, and kept just getting a slap on the wrist for it. I thought Pamela Colloff did a great job detailing his story, and the backgrounds of the various victims. It really was captivating writing, even if the story itself made me so angry.

Recommended if you’d love to be simultaneously frustrated and fascinated by a true crime case.

[Nichole]

An absolute masterclass in longform narrative journalism.

[Anna]

This four-star rating is by no means a reflection of any failure on the author's part. On the contrary, the task Pamela Colloff has undertaken feels akin to cleansing the Augean stables—an monumental, almost heroic effort of investigative rigor.
Piece by tedious piece, Colloff reconstructs an expansive, decades-spanning narrative from a sea of archival documents, trial transcripts, eyewitness testimony, and official records. As she candidly acknowledges, a pivotal stroke of fortune came with discovering Marieke in the Netherlands, who had preserved an extensive correspondence with one of the case's central figures. Those letters granted Colloff a rare, unmediated window into the narrative—allowing us to observe the story not merely through fragile memories or sanitized legal filings, but through the subject's own words.
What I admire most about Colloff’s execution is her absolute refusal to emulate fiction. She eschews literary embellishment and resists the temptation to manufacture dramatic tension. She simply has no need for such devices.
The underlying reality is so inherently harrowing that, as a reader, one is trapped in a persistent, disbelieving refrain:
This cannot be real. Such things simply cannot happen.
And yet, as page after page unfolds, the horrifying truth settles in: they can, and they did.
If the book falls short of a full five stars, it is not due to a flaw in the writing, but rather a visceral rejection of the reality it documents.
The primary terror here is not merely the existence of a figure like Paul Skalnik. Con men, serial liars, and sociopathic manipulators are an enduring fixture of human history. The true horror lies in the institutional apparatus that repeatedly, eagerly co-opted such a man—precisely because he was adept at fabricating the exact narratives authority figures wished to hear. It is a damning indictment of a legal framework that systematically incentivizes and rewards the manufactured testimony of jailhouse informants.
Perhaps the book’s entire methodology is best encapsulated by Colloff’s own realization upon interviewing Skalnik. Hoping initially that he might offer a lucid, insider account of the events, she quickly recognized the futility of the attempt:
“I’m going to have to piece this together myself.”
That single sentence serves as the blueprint for the entire work. Colloff does not present a sensationalized crime novel, nor even a standard true-crime narrative. Instead, the book reads as an impeccably constructed work of high-grade investigative journalism. Its impact is rendered all the more potent by her restraint: she never instructs the reader on what to feel. She merely marshals the facts in relentless succession, allowing their inherent weight to shatter any lingering illusions.
Upon turning the final page, what remains is not the satisfaction of having consumed a "compelling story," but a lingering, profound sense of shock—a grim awakening to how such systemic rot could flourish, unchecked, for so long.

[Brooke Bender]

This is by far one of the best true crime books I’ve ever read. The stand out quality for me is how it effectively breaks down how difficult it is to obtain post-conviction relief in capital cases even when extraordinary evidence that someone is factually innocent. As Colloff aptly states, “It’s a system designed for finality, not for correction.” This book is also a scathing indictment of the government’s use of jailhouse snitches.

This case exposes all of the worst parts of our criminal justice system and the death penalty — lazy and corrupt law enforcement and prosecutors who use jailhouse snitches because they know they can’t meet their burden without them, lazy defense attorneys who either don’t care enough or aren’t smart enough to do everything in their power to effectively represent a client facing the death penalty, and judges who go along with obvious prosecutorial misconduct.

This story and this man are a perfect example of why we must abolish the death penalty. No amount of retribution for the guilty is worth what Jim Dailey has endured. The police and prosecutors have every resource in the world to pursue “justice” so it when they have to lie and cheat and give deals to sex offenders to secure it, you know they realize just how weak their cases are when they choose to pursue this kind of informant testimony. Dailey has been on death row for almost 40 years even though it’s highly likely he’s innocent and Florida’s governor could choose to sign another death warrant for him any day.

I really cannot shut up about how well written and well researched this book is. I’ll be reading anything Colloff puts out in the future.

[Bill reilly]

Paul Skalnik is the name of the Devil of the title of this book. A con man of epic proportions would be an understatement. Frank Abagnale of Catch me if you Can fame was a rank amateur in comparison. Using various names and schemes he was able to separate his prey and their money with remarkable success.
In order to shorten his prison stays, Skalnik became a jailhouse snitch. Prosecutors used his testimony in dozens of cases and here is where we encounter James Dailey, a troubled veteran with substance abuse issues most likely caused by horrific events that he experienced while serving in Vietnam.
A teenage girl was murdered and a man named Jack Pearcy was sentenced to life in prison. Dailey was a drinking buddy of his and Jack gave differing accounts of the night of the murder. He eventually placed Dailey at the scene but witnesses said otherwise.
Enter Paul Skalnik and his convenient testimony of Dailey admitting to the murder while housed at the same prison. Deals were made and death row was the result.
The "justice" system has dealt with this death penalty case for over forty years and Catch the Devil is a very good read.

[Tyler Schroeder]

This book could also be called “The Perils of Confirmation Bias”. This a scary story of how detectives will believe anything from anyone if it confirms what they want it to confirm. Even if that is a jailhouse snitch who is a several time over convicted con-man. Obviously this story is told from the viewpoint of the defendants legal team, so it is going to paint a very rosy picture of their situation, so take that with a grain of salt. But it is scary to think of yourself being in this situation and how the legal system would allow this.

I was excited to see how they finally got Dailey out of death row, but it ends with a turd in punch bowl saying that he is still on death row, the snitch is now dead, his friend who lied about Dailey being the killer refuses to tell the truth, and they don’t know how they are going to get him off death row and the story remains unresolved.

Thankfully it was a short book so this didn’t seem like a waste of time, but it certainly accomplishes their goal of making the public mad and spreading awareness of this story.

[Faith]

Truly difficult to put into words my thoughts on this book — can really only say that everyone should read it and be prepared to be so so dismayed and devastated.

I thought this book was about a serial con artist, and it was, but it spent more time on the devastating story of Jim Dailey, a wrongfully convicted man on death row who was put there by the false testimony of the con artist and by myriad other factors and injustices. His story deserves to be told and I really admire the author for doing it so well.

I was moved to tears by the end of it; this book will sit with me for a long time. I’ll continue to be shocked and saddened by how our justice system prioritizes winning convictions over telling the truth.

“[Met de moed der wanhoop] acknowledges that you can be simultaneously scared, and even know you might fail — but that you are still going to try, and to continue to hope. It acknowledges the resilience you only find when tested.”

[Kenzie | kenzienoelle.reads]

3.75 stars. I was instantly sold on this book from the premise. The story of a wrongfully incarcerated man told through the story of the conman who helped put him there. I’m always drawn to stories of wrongful incarceration, how it happened and the journey to find justice. Per usual, we see just how “just” the justice system really is🙃

It was hard not to compare this one to lots of other books I’ve read in this vein and I think this story could have been told just as well in an article. There wasn’t enough story to really fill a whole book to me.

Thank you Knopf for the gifted book!!

[Courtney Townill]

Catch the Devil feels like multiple true crime stories in one: the details of the many cons Paul Skalnik ran, the murder investigation of a Florida teenager, and then the processes of the death row system. I was unaware of Paul Skalnik, or the murder of Shelly Boggio, but Conloff’s reporting had me in its teeth until the very final, pointed line. I had to sit on my hands to avoid Googling this case because the way each piece of information and each twist in the case was delivered was so visceral that I didn’t want to “spoil” anything.

[Staci]

A wild story about a con artist named Paul Skalnik who pushed limits and had several turns of good fortune. Since Paul lived in Texas most of his life, it was even more engaging to be familiar with the cities, etc. Other parts of the book take place in Kansas and Florida. It's crazy what the man got away with.

I listened to the audiobook version. Nice job by the narrator.

Some foul language.

[Jenny Creech]

Another excellent nonfiction, deep dive, investigative work of art! Catch the Devil is another example of what narrative nonfiction should be. It reads like a novel, but is full of detailed facts that make an investigation about a criminal who shares information in a corrupt justice system to a deeply impactful narrative. I also highly recommend the NYT story this book spurred from, ‘False Witness.’

[Paulette]

This book was so good, but boy, was it infuriating. I really do wish Colloff had pushed in more on the fact that Skalnik was white, because that’s the biggest reason why he got away with so much, and left behind so much destruction in his awful life.

This is going to sound weird, but one of my favorite parts of the book was how she handled Karen Parker’s story with grace and horror. The fact that she wasn’t believed for so long, and the fact that she wasn’t the only abused victim speaks volumes about what the courts, lawyers, and judges actually favor.

SPEAKING OF WHICH—When I say that the courts are unserious and nothing matters, this is how I mean it. Governors and judges and prosecutors etc etc who want to juice up their careers by how many convictions they get in order to be perceived as tough on crime NEED people like Skalnik (who don’t care about anyone other than themselves) to lie and convict people !! This is why the state shouldn’t be allowed to kill people, it’s a failed way to deliver justice.

Anyway, it was a fantastic book, but I’ll be haunted by it for a while.

[Julia Holmes]

3.5/5

[Kelly Coles]

I am literally speechless. Not that I had much faith in our justice system to begin with, but this is just shocking.

Insane reporting work by Pamela Colloff! I hope it leads to a small measure of justice for Jim to live the end of his life in peace.