Paul Skalnik, writes journalist and debut author Colloff, “had an instinct for what people wanted to hear,” an essential talent for a successful con man. And successful Skalnik was: He married nine times, sometimes simultaneously, and bilked his wives and countless other people out of money, cars, jewelry, real estate, whatever he could steal. He did so while claiming to be many things that he was not: an ace Marine Corps fighter pilot who had been shot down over Vietnam, a wealthy lawyer temporarily short of cash thanks to big investments, a University of Texas star football player grounded by injury, a C-suite captain of industry. Somehow people fell for it, right and left. But more than that, and at a more depraved level of pathology, Skalnik sexually assaulted numerous women and girls, including a “slight and freckled seventh grader.” All these crimes added up to a constant series of jail and prison terms, and there, Colloff chronicles, Skalnik found his truest métier as an informant, pinning murders, drug trafficking charges, and countless other crimes on fellow inmates whom he swore under testimony had confessed to him. Read more
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