Beauty and the Scalpel

Peter Ralph is a former ‘big four’ chartered accountant who specialized in corporate reconstructions, recoveries, and liquidations. In the reconstructions, he acted as a surgeon chopping away the excess fat. In the recoveries, he was like a lifeguard giving mouth to mouth. In the liquidations, he was a combination of funeral director and forensic investigator.

As a forensic investigator, Peter spent a large part of his career investigating and testifying in the courts about the reasons for corporate collapses and whether directors had engaged in fraud.

Later he became CEO of one his recovery clients, a heavy transport equipment designer, and manufacturer that he successfully floated as a public company.

He has a background well suited to writing novels about white collar crime and fraud. In 2012, he was highly commended in the Fellowship of Australian Writers National Literary Awards, for his novel about unconventional gas, Dirty Fracking Business.