Peterman charts the career of Shifty Burke, a career criminal and expert safe-breaker, in the London Underworld of the 1950s and swinging '60s, punctuated by several spells of 'bird' at Her Majesty's Pleasure. Initially published as a true-crime autobiography, diplomat's wife Peggie Benton eventually owned up to being the author, having created the character as a composite of characters encountered by her brother, a prison chaplain. Now republished by the author's literary estate as an ebook-only edition, Peterman is an intriguing, amusing tale of blags, lags, villains and screws in postwar Britain.