Reeves’s research, while certainly thorough (as demonstrated in the Notes section of the book), is insufficient to provide a credibly ‘real’ portrait of George Freeman. The problem is, as Reeves puts it himself at one stage, ‘Unless one or two more people break down and tell the truth before their final boat rides, we will never really know what happened ...’

The second, more troubling, inaccuracy in Reeves’s titular claim is that the story is only peripherally about George Freeman. Reeves takes us on a winding path through the history of many criminals – Roger Rogerson, Nick Paltos, and Lenny McPherson, to name a few – while Freeman is mentioned, almost in passing, as a shadowy figure who was surely involved in everything, somehow. We just aren’t always told how.

Yet there are many fascinating stories within this book, and Reeves conveys them well. At full gallop, each episode is riveting. The cast of characters comes to life through an idiosyncratic voice, with words such as ‘crook’ and ‘fizgig’ morphing the telling into a yarn of the kind blokes might tell at the pub. Weaving these narrative strands into some sort of order, however, either chronologically or by character, eludes Reeves. Instead, the story jumps from one character to the next, forward in time and then back again, leaving the reader unsure who is alive or dead, and who is in prison at any given time. This account of a fascinatingly sordid chapter in Sydney’s history is for those looking for sensationalism, not insight.