Sandy Springs resident, new father and Alston and Bird law firm partner Scott Hilsen wrote his first novel, “Fraudulent Intention$,” “between taking depositions and changing diapers,” hammering out bits and pieces of the story on his cell phone.

“I wrote emails to myself and then pasted them into a Word document,” the 43-year-old said. “Using the BlackBerry freed me from my desk and allowed me to write whenever and wherever I had an opportunity.”

The World Wide Web figures strongly not only in the book’s production, but also in its subject matter.

“The book is a novel based on the true story of a fraud investigation of an Internet company that revealed a secret connection with the Russian mafia and exposed a shocking online fraud,” Hilsen said about a case that he spearheaded.

Although fictionalized, the story has a true-crime punch.

“I punctuated the surprise ending of the story with actual redacted documents that we found,” he said about files uncovered by his team and modified to conceal true identities.

Since its April release, the self-published volume has garnered praise from readers like former Fulton County Superior Court Judge Gino Brogdon and state Deputy Inspector General William Donaldson.

“It has been widely acclaimed, not only among my colleagues and other fraud professionals, but also broadly by avid readers of thrillers,” Hilsen said. “In addition, the book is now required reading in a college course called Investigating White Collar Crime at Georgia Southern University.”

Don Berecz, fraud examination and forensic accounting department head at Georgia Southern, said the text is well-chosen.

“This story shows what it takes to ‘make the case’ in a forensic investigation involving fraud and deceit,” he said in a statement. “Future fraud investigators, take note of the challenges, hard work, stresses and human elements in this type of work.”

Hilsen, who is also a guest lecturer at the University of Georgia and Georgia State University business schools, got the book idea from his own lesson plans.

“I developed a hypothetical based on the investigation and used it to teach students about various aspects of fraud investigations, including interviewing techniques, legal issues that arise in investigations and document forensics,” he said.

A little research uncovered a need in the marketplace.

“I scoured the bookstore shelves and didn’t find any novels based on a fraud investigation, so I thought that I could tap into a niche,” Hilsen said.

On the Web

visit www.scotthilsen.net