During the 1920s, C J DeGaris’ name was a byword both for disreputable absconders and can-do entrepreneurs. A charismatic developer who wooed investors from Victoria to Western Australia and as far afield as the United States, DeGaris faked his drowning at Port Phillip Bay to escape financial problems. On the lam for two weeks, he was spotted wearing several disguises, including that of a woman and a portly American businessman.

Public fascination in his eventual arrest in New Zealand was such that a special run of The Sun News Pictorial sold out. His renowned chutzpah as a salesman sparked rumours that during the police escort back to Victoria, he had sold the arresting officer two blocks of land. It was more punchline than fact, but there was truth in his skills. Less than a month after his return in custody, Victoria’s Premier John Allan lamented “what is needed is a little more of the DeGaris spirit, so that we could get things done”. However, his fake suicide also inspired a wave of copycats eager for a fresh start from bad business deals or love gone wrong.

While not the first developer to have deals go awry and finance dry up, DeGaris is, in David Nichols’ absorbing tale, a trailblazer. DeGaris embodies modernity. He embraces new technology – from aircraft to fast cars and dehydrators (for sending dried fruit around the world) – and new media – cinema, radio and advertising – to promote his ventures. “The magic wand of publicity,” he called it.

American-style competitions were his promotional tool of choice. Explaining his love of them, DeGaris told a journalist in 1919: “Get the public curious and you have created the demand.” An early success was a contest to rename a product in Mildura’s dried-fruit industry. The winning entry, Sun-Raysed, led to the region also being known as “Sunraysia”. Indeed, growing up in Mildura and witnessing irrigation technology transform the district’s riches reinforced his belief in technological solutions.

A booster also of Australian culture, DeGaris believed Australian stories and musicals should be told and staged. He led by example, self-financing a production (“an immature musical theatre [that] barely broke even”) and a literary competition for his publishing house. He also possessed the salesman’s essential charm. Smiling with your eyes was the way to ingratiate yourself with one’s fellow man, his revered Methodist father counselled.

“Tycoons and entrepreneurs are usually concerned primarily with their own wealth and prospects,” writes Nichols. “The DeGarises were exceptions. They saw themselves as facilitators for greater prosperity, comfort and happiness for the wider community.”

DeGaris was an early believer in the potential, if not need, to develop Australia’s regions. His fortunes foundered in Western Australia in the town of Kendenup near Albany. With the help of Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony’s knitlock housing technology and a massive dehydrator, he hoped to replicate Mildura’s success. Frustratingly key American investors pulled out at the 11th hour. He enticed Ford to Corio, but unfortunately the move happened after his financial woes proved insurmountable.

It isn’t the first telling of DeGaris’ story. Indeed, DeGaris published an autobiography – before things got really interesting. However, Nichols is a historian of urban planning and the DeGaris story isn’t just the stuff of lurid tabloids (alongside the fake suicide it contains a terrifically unhinged villain). The book’s title comes from newspaper coverage of his Corio development. In one day, 1075 people toured the site. Newspapers described DeGaris glowingly: radiating “enthusiasm from those alert grey twinkling eyes”. Invoking the words of John Batman, DeGaris declared “this is the place not for a village, but for a garden suburb on the most advanced of town planning principles”.