The slow demise of the CBC, as government budget-cutters press ever onward, poses a worrisome problem for Canadian publishers: without the resources of the national network, where will they find their books? CBC Radio in particular has been a godsend to the book industry. The familiar voices of Peter Gzowski, Stuart McLean, Vicki Gabereau, and Arthur Black make an easy transition into print and the literate audiences they draw translate well into steady sales.

It’s unlikely Andreas Schroeder’s lighthearted roundup of likable frauds would have caught a major publisher’s eye but for the book’s origins on CBC Radio’s Basic Black. That simple fact by itself means that the marketing department’s work is half done. A readership is out there and the book must necessarily follow.

Schroeder has greatly expanded his on-air portraits of some of the world’s more ambitious white-collar criminals, but this collection is still little more than a rehash of someone else’s retellings. The sources Schroeder cites are few in number and bear such titles as The World’s Greatest Rip-Offs and Those College Highjinks. Clearly this is not a work of much depth or originality.

But for those who can’t be bothered visiting the Scam section of the public library themselves, Schroeder proves to be an engaging middleman. Except for a few outbursts of painful folksiness, his narratives are straightforward and coherent – no small feat when reducing complex frauds such as the Hitler-diary hoax to a few pages. It is curious, then, that he wastes space on such small-time deceptions as the students who foiled the cigarette machine or the drunks who beat the breathalyzer. His best tales are the detailed accounts of clever men (fraud apparently being gender-specific) who built fortunes from deceit: James Reavis who claimed half of Arizona through obscure (and forged) Spanish land titles; teenage Frank Abagnale who found a way to make millions posing as a Pan Am pilot; and Robert Trippet, an oil man whose extensive business empire lacked only oil.

Though Schroeder presents his stories as humorous and largely harmless entertainments, hardened cynics can’t help but conclude that similar scams are flourishing all around us, waiting to be exposed. If this book undermines faith in the more grandiose business messiahs while subduing greed in those inclined to follow them, it will have performed a useful service.