While Peter Foster was spending time on remand in a Brisbane prison cell a few years ago, he turned his hand to that favourite prisoner's pastime, the memoir.
It was couched in the irrepressible tone of a man who has repeatedly been convicted of frauds in Australia, the United States and Britain, but has always bounced back with new money making schemes.
In Revealing Secrets - The Art of the Reverse Sell, Mr Foster, 39, described how two decades of shady business had taught him that "being a conman is one of the most prestigious and respectable professions you can pursue".
His great gift, the Australian conman explained to would-be imitators, was the "reverse sell" - the art of underplaying your hand to intrigue potential buyers.
It was, he claimed, as effective in his love life as it was in his career.
Mr Foster said that when he first met former page three girl Sam Fox, he ignored her throughout the evening in favour of every other woman present.
Finally, after she asked him for a dance, he claims to have told her: "I read in this morning's newspaper that you can have any man in the world you want. This is one man you can't."
Mr Foster, who went on to propose marriage to her, not only persuaded the glamour model to be his girlfriend but inveigled her to promote his Bai Lin "slimming tea" which bore the words "Ancient Chinese diet secret."
That was in the 1980s, when: "I excelled ... [in] giving exhibitions in extravagance. Every day crackled with excitement as I made millions, models and mayhem."
Under testing, Bai Lin was demonstrated to be ordinary black China tea and Mr Foster's company was fined £5,000 for breaching the Trade Descriptions Act.
In a newspaper interview three years ago, Fox was glacial. "I'm old enough now to know that I'd never be taken in again by the likes of Peter Foster," she told the Mirror. "But then, I was 22 and impressionable.
"My parents had split and here was a man who was clever, manipulative and domineering. I came close to marrying him because I was so vulnerable."
His criminal record stretches back to 1983, when he was fined £75,000 by an Australian court at the age of 20 after he tried to defraud an insurance company out of £40,000.
A year later he was declared bankrupt in his native country after trying to market a "magic" method of quitting smoking.
In 1988, his company was fined for breaching the Trade Descriptions Act with Bai Lin, but he attempted the same trick in America where the bogus diet aid was renamed Cho Lo.
The Cho Lo scam earned him a four-month jail sentence in Los Angeles for conspiracy to commit grand theft.
Exploiting the anxieties of the overweight seems his most favoured ruse. In 1995, he was jailed for two years at Liverpool crown court after persuading a former slimmer of the year to falsely claim she lost 12 stone using his company's diet granules.
Two years ago, he was extradited to Britain to face new fraud charges relating to a "thigh reduction cream."
He was sentenced to 33 months but freed immediately because of time served on remand.
If his public statements can be taken at face value, Mr Foster has been deluding himself as well as others.
Three years ago, he fought British attempts to extradite him by claiming he would be killed if he returned to a UK prison.
This was because he had helped authorities expose a network of corrupt prison officers, he told an Australian newspaper.
His mother Louise, a staunch defender, said at the time: "My son does not enjoy a good reputation. But that should not deny him the Australian ethic of being given a fair go."
For all the public disgrace he has endured, assaults on his character still seem to matter. He once told a journalist plaintively: "If I could have my time over, I would like to have a good reputation."