Catch the Devil

From an award-winning New York Times Magazine writer, Catch the Devil is a compulsive blend of investigative journalism and true crime thriller.

For more than three decades, Paul Skalnik roamed the American Southwest pretending to be someone he was not. Spinning whatever narrative served him, he passed himself off as a fighter pilot, a high-rolling oilman, a criminal defense attorney, an undercover agent, and a terminal cancer patient, among other personas. In these guises, he married nine women-some at the same time-scammed them out of their money, and coerced young girls into sex.

When Skalnik got caught, as he invariably did, he would run a different con. In jail, he would claim to have overheard the 'confessions' of the men around him and then offer these stories to Prosecutors." He became the state's 'closer', the witness who could smooth over a case's inconsistencies, and win convictions. In return, the state rewarded him with his freedom-freedom he used to hurt more unsuspecting people.

In 1985, Jim Dailey, a gentle Vietnam vet on a long alcoholic slide was caught in Skalnik's web. Despite a total lack of physical evidence, Dailey was implicated in the murder of 14-year-old Shelly Boggio. Skalnik's account of Dailey's 'confession' put Dailey on death row where he still waits, four decades later.

In this mesmerizing narrative of crime and punishment, Colloff shows us what happens when the modus operandi of a relentless con artist meets the upside-down reality of a broken justice system. It is an intricate, evocative and haunting narrative about the devastating impact of one person's actions and a searing expose of the system supposedly designed to stop them.