with Stan Redding
An intriguing memoir of Frank W Abagnale, outlining his life as the ultimate fake and con man. As I read his life story as a swindler and check forger, posing his way as a pilot, a pediatrician, a lawyer, an author and whatever else he needs to be to amass thousands of dollars, I found myself in a dilemna: hate his guts or admire him? And it doesn't help that I so thoroughly love the movie and Frank's character as played by Leonardo di Caprio, and that in the book, unlike the movie, he did actually pay for his crime in the most horrid inhumane way at a French prison, and that he ultimately turned his life around and is instrumental in revamping bank and secure-document safety by working with the FBI Financial Crimes unit. I am still left with the nagging question: in this book, in Frank's life, does crime pay?
'A man's alter ego is nothing more than his favorite image of himself. The mirror in my room in the Windsor Hotel in Paris reflected my favorite image of me -- a darkly handsome young airline pilot, smooth-skinned, bull-shouldered and immaculately groomed. Modesty is not one of my virtues. At the time, virtue was not one of my virtues.'(opening lines)
'Someone once said there's no such thing as an honest man. He was probably a con man.'(13)
'The baby had lost his doleful look. No one is really certain if newborn infants have thoughts or are aware of what is going on around them. No one but me, that is. That kid knew I was a phony. I could see it in his face.'(95)
'The National Crime Information Center (NCIC) did not exist as a police tool during the period. Had I had to contend with the computerized police link, with its vast and awesome reservoir of criminal facts and figures, my career would probably have been shortened by years. And lastly, I was pioneering a scam that was so implausible, so seemingly impossible and so brass-balled blatant that it worked.'(62-63)
'And all day long I'd go around feeling like Hippocrates in my hypocrite's mantle.'(83)
'I hadn't even finished high school and had yet to step on college campus, but I was a certified lawyer! However, I regarded my actual lack of academic qualifications merely a technicality, and in my four months of legal cramming I'd learned the law is full of technicalities. Technicalities are what screw up justice.'(105)
'I have since learned something about Harvard men. They're like badgers. They like to stick together in their own barrows. A lone badger is going to find another badger. A Harvard man in a strange area is going to find another Harvard man. And they're going to talk about Harvard.'(108)
'The former police chief of Houston once said of me: "Frank Abagnale could write a check on toilet paper, drawn on the Confederate States Treasury, sign it 'U.R. Hooked' and cash it at any back in town, using a Hong Kong driver's license for identification."(116)
'The transaction also verified a suspicion I had long entertained: it's not how good a check looks but how good the person behind the check looks that influences tellers and cashiers.'(120)
'A con artist's only weapon is his brain.'(129)
'I learned later that I was the first check swindler to use the routing number racket. It drove bankers up the wall. They didn't know what the hell was going on. They do now and they owe me.'(156)
'Four months after taking up residence in Montpellier, I learned a bitter truth: when the hounds have help, there is no safe place for a fox to hide.'(221)
First Broadway Book movie tie-in edition 2002
277 pages
Book owned
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