I have vague memories of the National Safety Council back in the 1980s, primarily related to NSC CEO John Friedrich doing a runner. As it turns out, Friedrich was quite an interesting character who was certainly not born with the name John Friedrich.

There were a lot of rumours and innuendo put about around Friedrich and Thomas does a good job of refuting some of those rumours and supplying documentation to prove others. However, considering that the Friedrich story has so many elements that lead themselves to great storytelling, "The Fraud" reads very flat and had I not specifically wanted to read about Australia's then largest fraud case, I doubt I would have finished it. ( )