Catch Me if You Can recounts the true story of the author's life as a teenage con man. When he was in high school, he started cashing fake checks; by the time he was nineteen, he had pretended to be an airline pilot, a lawyer, and a doctor, and had forged $2.5 million worth of checks. Major themes in this novel include identity crisis, forgery, and trickery, as well as the idea of punishments fitting their crimes.