A wealthy businessman fakes his disappearance, is declared dead and starts a new life - then it all falls apart when he runs into his brother who can't believe his eyes.
It sounds like a story ripped from the pages of a spy novel, especially when you add in Ukranian gangsters, a $3.5million life insurance policy and a bigamous marriage.
But it's not a spy book, it's Harry Gordon's autobiography How I Faked My Own Death and Did Not Get Away with It.
The story starts in the Hunter region of NSW in June, 2000, when Gordon was aged 51.
Gordon took what he refers to as a 'quickboat' out on the Karuah estuary and, as far as the world was concerned, disappeared, presumed dead. In reality, he left the boat on a small rubber dinghy, made it back to dry land and was relieved to discover the van he'd parked - and the $100,000 in cash and two bottles of champagne in it - was still there.
That was the how of his disappearance. The why was more complicated. Gordon has never strayed from his claim that he did it because he was in trouble with Ukranian business associates/gangsters. The NSW Police are convinced it was straight up insurance fraud. Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Gordon began living an anonymous life under the assumed name Bill Teare in the inner city Sydney suburb of Kensington.
But he had a lot of time on his hands, much of which was taken up with trips on the Manly ferry, a daily visit to the State Library of NSW and going to the George Street cinema every Tuesday night because there were discount tickets. He only had $100,000 to keep the wolf from the door - he had to budget.
On one of those Tuesday nights, he bumped into an old female acquaintance and only saved himself through quick thinking.
'It's you isn't it?' the woman asked, grasping Gordon's arm. His disappearance was big news, there was no use denying he was who he was.
'Well it certainly was me, in an earlier life,' he said with a smile.
'But now I am someone else, in a witness protection program, the person you knew died I'm afraid.'
His response was off the top of his head. He should have planned for this eventuality, but hadn't. To his astonishment, his lie worked.
'I am not really supposed to be out and about you know. I sneaked out of the safe house for a movie to give myself a little break from it all,' Gordon continued.
'Don't worry; your secret is safe with me,' the woman replied. And it was, she never said a word. Nor did anyone else he later had to use the same lines on.
But after two months, Gordon desperately missed his wife, Sheila, despite their marriage being far from perfect.
'Sheila also was my only link with reality. My current life was imaginary, but insufficiently imagined.
'I used a false name and had some money, but I didn't have a driver's licence or a Medicare card, passport or any other identity document. I just didn't exist,' he writes.
After letting himself in the back door of their house in Waterloo - just 2.4km from where he was living - Gordon didn't get the emotional reunion he'd longed for.
He describes it memorably. 'We didn't embrace. She folded her arms just below her large artificial breasts and listened as I talked. I reminded her that we had discussed the option of me disappearing.'
Sheila uses some colourful language and tells him she never for one second thought he'd go through with it.
Their daughter, Josaphine, was in the UK and pregnant and would soon have to be told her father wasn't actually dead.
By the time Gordon and Josaphine finally reunited in Australia after the inquest into his death, Sheila had already explained his mysterious disappearance to her by saying he was in a witness protection program.
'We both burst into tears when we first embraced then laughed out loud at the wonderment of life and love. It was a joyful meeting,' he writes.
The next five years took Gordon to Spain, then to England and South Africa. In late 2002 he flew to New Zealand, the country he had left for Australia in the mid-70s, and settled in Auckland selling garages and project homes.
Along the way, he became Rob Motzel with a false passport that cost $25,000, and blue contact lenses.
In Auckland, he also picked up a new girlfriend, soon to be wife, the flame-haired Kristine. It would hasten his undoing.
Trouble was soon afoot. In May 2005, Gordon and Kristine ran into his older brother Michael in Tauranga.
The men passed each other and then Michael doubled back to confront the brother he thought had drowned in a boating accident five years earlier.
'Hello,' he said. 'Is that really you?'
Gordon brazened his way through it. 'Of course,' he said.
'But look, it's not convenient to talk now. I'll call you in a few days.'
A few steps on, he explained to Kristine, 'That was just an old friend.'
She bought it, and their bigamous marriage in September 2005, led to a bigamous honeymoon in the Cook Islands.
But by the time they were due to fly back to New Zealand, Australian police had been tipped off about Gordon's new identity by Sheila after Michael had encouraged her to do so - not realising she had known for years.
Airlines were alerted, and 'Rob' was refused permission to board his plane because he had a stolen passport.
Kristine flew to Auckland on her own. She and Gordon's work colleagues were about to find out that the man they thought they knew was wanted in Australia for a $3.5million insurance fraud.
Ever resourceful, Gordon made his way from the Cook Islands to Fiji and used his charm to somehow get a New Zealand passport in his real name.
He flew to Sydney, but once he got through immigration, he was arrested and charged with false representation and conspiracy to defraud the AMP insurance company. The jig was up.
He pleaded guilty to all charges, and ended up in a low security prison farm. He was sentenced to 15 months but served just a year behind bars.
Sheila and Josaphine were later charged with conspiracy. Sheila served five months of home detention and charges against Josaphine were dropped.
Gordon divorced Sheila and somehow convinced Kristine to marry him for real.
Sheila died of lung cancer in 2017, Harry and Kristine are still together and he has a strong relationship with Josaphine and his grandchild.
The word I appears 2,756 times in the book. It's hard to write a biography without a lot of I in it, but it also shows who really mattered most to Harry Gordon all along.
How I Faked My Own Death and Did Not Get Away with It, Harry Gordon, New Holland Publishers RRP $29.99 available from all good book retailers or online www.newhollandpublishers.com
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