Paul Skalnik was a con artist, passing bad checks, role-playing as a successful businessman, and racking up a series of sometimes overlapping marriages. Over the years, he bilked numerous people out of their savings with hollow promises and half-cocked schemes, which often ended with him fleeing town.
That in itself would make him a compelling character for a book. He’s the type of grifter who calls to mind simpler, more naive times. Indeed, he did a lot of his damage in the 1980s, before the internet made it easy to check if someone was actually, for example, a high-powered executive.
