Australian Crime

The ultimate collection of Australia's craziest cons and mad schemes from a master storyteller. Australia is the birthplace and setting of some of the wildest, craziest and least-likely-to-succeed cons and rorts in history. From the cleverest double-crosses to the most unlikely and maddest schemes, master storyteller Jim Haynes reminds us that we've never been shy of pulling a trick or two.

Two criminal empires together control all of New England. Until a beautiful modern-day Helen of Troy comes between the Irish and the Italians, launching a war that will see them kill each other, destroy an alliance, and set a city on fire. Danny Ryan yearns for a more 'legit' life and a place in the sun. But as the bloody conflict stacks body on body and brother turns against brother, Danny has to rise above himself.

For all her life, Till, now twenty-three, has lived in the shadow of the abduction of a childhood friend, and her tormented half-wondering about whether she might have been able to stop it. Finally, at the age of twenty-three, Till flees her past and the hovering presence of her fearful parents. In Wirowie, a town that's on its knees, she stops and slowly begins creating a new home, rebuilding an abandoned railway station. But there is danger here too.

Australia has a unique place in the history of outlaw motorcycle gangs. From the clubs' beginnings in the swinging '60s, their entry into the amphetamine market in the 1970s, through to the 1984 Milperra Massacre that made world headlines, to the Sydney airport brawl between the Hell's Angels and Comancheros and the brutal murder of Anthony Zervas, Outlaw Bikers in Australia tells how these 'one per cent deviants' grew to dominate the recreational drug market and became major players in the international outlaw biker scene.

Adam Bowman, a battling journalist who grew up as the son of a teacher at Prince Albert College, might be the only one who can uncover the links between the school murder and the 'Blue Moon Killer'. But he will have to go into the darkest places of his childhood to piece together the clues. Detective Sergeant Rose Riley, meanwhile, is part of the taskforce desperately trying to find the killer before he strikes again. Adam Bowman's excavation of his past might turn out to be Rose's biggest trump card or it may bring the whole investigation crashing down, and put her own life in danger.

Sometimes, crime is good in small doses. The Killing Words is 17 small doses. For most of the Crime Writers of South Australia, these are first published works. Among them, Nigel Ford's The Hitch, about a serial predator trawling truck stops for another perfect-victim, stands out for wicked quirkiness. Reece Pocock's The Girl in the Red Beret shivers the spine. Unwelcome Message by James Hardiman is decidedly lateral, since it is about the murder of a whale. Stephen J. Lord's Feminine Endings is fast and filmic and keeps one on one's toes while Michael Gamtcheff s The Collector has a ...

Tikka Malloy was 11 and one-sixth years old during the long hot summer of 1992, living in an Australian suburb with her sister and their three best friends. That summer was when the Van Apfel sisters, Ruth, Hannah, and the beautiful Cordelia, mysteriously disappeared. Did they just run - far away from their harsh, evangelical parents - or were they taken? While the search for the girls united the small community, the mystery of their disappearance was never solved. Now, years later, Tikka has returned home to try to make sense of that strange moment in time.

Society couple Michael O'Neill and Stuart Rattle had it all - their lavish country property, their interior design business - until Michael bludgeoned Stuart to death with a cooking pan. Akon Guode intentionally drove into a lake, leaving three of her children trapped in the car to drown. Geoff Hunt, pillar of the local community, shot dead his wife and their three children before killing himself. From feuds on the farm to the infamous Lindt Café Siege in Sydney, Mind Behind the Crime profiles Australia's most horrific, and often most unlikely, killers.

Australian and New Zealand crime and thriller writing is booming globally. Neighbours that are siblings in spirit, vastly different in landscape, antipodean authors offer readers and listeners a blend of exotic and familiar, seasoned by distinctive senses of place, outlook, and humour, and roots that trace to the earliest days of our genre. Southern Cross Crime is the first comprehensive guide to modern Australian and New Zealand crime writing.

Nick Kaldas is a cop's cop. From investigating war criminals to taking down global drug operations, Kaldas has seen the worst humanity can offer. But he's also seen which human qualities can lead to greatness. This is the compelling true story of an immigrant boy from Egypt who rose from beat cop to become one of the most senior police officers in Australia. During his time in the NSW police force, he was one of Australia's first Arab undercover cops, headed up both the Homicide and Gang Squad units, reformed the Counter Terrorism team and then became the Deputy Police Commissioner.

In 1838, 11 convicts and former convicts were put on trial for the brutal murder of 28 Aboriginal men, women and children at Myall Creek in Northern New South Wales. The trial created an enormous amount of controversy because it was almost unknown for Europeans to be charged with the murder of Aborigines. It would become the most serious trial of mass murder in Australia’s history.

For over a century, the Ned Kelly legend has grown and grown. He's become Australia's Robin Hood, and leader of a colonial Irish resistance. How much of the legend is true? This is the real story of the hunt for the Kelly Gang over two long years. As gripping as any police procedural, it is an account of poorly trained officers unfamiliar with the terrain, in pursuit of the most dangerous men in the state. By recounting the story from the perspective of the law, David Dufty gets to the heart of the story and finds answers to many unresolved questions.

Since leaving the Boston Police Department, Bill Robinson has run The Inn by the Sea in Gloucester, Massachusetts. There he offers a safe and supportive home for his long-term guests. That tranquil life, however, is about to be shattered. Two murderers are heading to Bill's door. One needs his help to evade the cops. The other plans to kill again to silence the truth. Standing in their way are the residents of the Inn. And not everyone will get out alive.

Kenna arrives in Sydney to surprise her best friend. But Mikki and her fiancé Jack are about to head away on a trip, so Kenna finds herself tagging along for the ride. Sorrow Bay is beautiful, wild and dangerous. A remote surfing spot with waves to die for, cut off from the rest of the world. Here Kenna meets a mysterious group of people who will do anything to keep their paradise a secret. Sky, Ryan, Clemente and Victor have come to disappear from life. But what did they leave behind?

Part biography, part forensic jigsaw puzzle, part cold-case detective investigation, The Eagle in the Mirror is the astonishing untold story of an Australian-born intelligence officer accused by some espionage experts of being the traitor of the century: Charles Howard 'Dick' Ellis. The longest serving spy for the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Ellis helped set up the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), now known as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS).

In the long, hot summer of 1989, Ben and Fab are best friends. Growing up in a small country town, they spend their days playing cricket, yabbying in local dams, wanting a pair of Nike Air Maxes and not talking about how Fab's dad hits him or how the sudden death of Ben's next-door neighbour unsettled him. Almost teenagers, they already know some things are better left unsaid. Then a newcomer arrives in the Wimmera. Fab reckons he is a secret agent, and he and Ben stake him out.

Ryan and Elsie Delaney don't accept the official line that their young daughter drowned on Santa Monica beach. Her body has never been found and their pleas for a proper investigation are rejected. So now the desperate pair are raining hellfire on the police. Taking three hostages at the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center, they give law enforcement an ultimatum: if Tilly isn't located in the next 24 hours, they will destroy evidence in several major cases. Detective Charlie Hoskins only just survived five years embedded with the ruthless gang known as the Death Machines.

ORGINAL STORY - WRITTEN BY A HUMAN This intriguing prequel novella introduces Detective Ange Watson, tracing her first steps into the world of crime-solving and revealing how she became the tenacious investigator readers will grow to love. A Routine Case… or the Start of Something Deadly? Constable Ange Watson’s policing career is fast unravelling. After calling out a superior for recklessly putting her life at risk, she’s been sidelined, labelled as a whinger, left questioning whether she even belongs in the force. With her resignation email drafted and her finger hovering over "send...

In late 1932, Iris Webber arrives in Sydney looking for work but the city is still in the grip of the Depression and there are few jobs for women at the best of times. She makes her way as best she can: a scam here, a shoplift there, busking with an accordion. And she knows how to use a gun. When Iris meets young sex worker Maisie Matthews, everything changes. But what options are there in a world where even on the margins, queer desire is harshly punished? The only way forward is paved with violence.

Boasting the biggest beats in the world – some as large as France – Australia's outback police have seen it all: natural disasters, incredible acts of selflessness, unspeakable crimes and daring rescues, just to name a few. And they've met some unforgettable characters along the way – from the murderer who stuffed his victims' bodies down wombat holes; to the policeman who arrested his own wife; to the prisoner who risked his life to rescue his own captor from certain death.