Caught Out! Scandals! Lies! Cover-ups! (Wendy Lewis, New Holland, $24.95 pb, 9781741106466, May) ****

Are Australians a bunch of knee-jerkers? I’m talking about people who have strong opinions on subjects they know nothing about. If you listen to talkback radio (or sit around my family dining table any evening,) then your answer would  undoubtedly be yes! Mention Shane Warne or David Hicks, Schapelle Corby or Wayne Carey, and talkback lines go into meltdown…and the knee-jerkers spout off. Wendy Lewis has put 36 Australian scandals, lies and cover-ups under the microscope in a handy guide. Lewis says scandals are the moral barometer of the nation, that they crystallize our attitudes towards justice, corruption and prejudice. Here, she provides well-written, factual and concise summaries of major stories that have made frontpage headlines in recent years. And with the benefit of hindsight, she uncovers some interesting facts. Did you know that Alan Bond’s America’s Cup victory was actually his fourth attempt at triumph? Or that Helen Darville was only 21-years-old when she won the Vogel Literary Award, and instituted Australia’s biggest literary fraud? Or that the man who let off a starter pistol near Prince Charles when he was in Australia in 1994 is now a barrister? Caught Out is good fun and easy to read—and a handy weapon against any knee-jerkers you may come across.

Brendan Gullifer is the author of the Pocketbook of Aussie Patriotism (Black Inc.)

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

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