Australian True Crime

With over 55,000 disappearances annually in Australia, each story is a heart-wrenching account of unanswered questions and shattered lives. The narrative spans decades, from the 1980s to present-day mysteries, including the puzzling case of a gentle Greenpeace worker vanishing amidst inner-city Melbourne, the suspicious disappearance of a 21-year-old, and the grim discovery of scattered remains in Queensland, unravelling a harrowing tale of violence and tragedy. And then there is the perplexing case of a man who went missing over and over again.

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.

A true insider's story of the backpacker murders from the detective who led the team that arrested Ivan Milat. Milat - the serial killer who preyed on young hitchhikers. The backpackers - the innocent victims of a brutal murderer. Belanglo - a place that became synonymous with pure evil. It was the biggest and most complex manhunt in Australian history, an investigation that gripped a nation. Behind the many false leads and dead ends, precious clues emerged that pointed to one man.

When Tim Bowden went back to Tasmania to explore his state of origin for the first time in many years, he was reminded of his adolescent assertion that "Tasmania is the testicle of Australia, suffusing the mainland with strength and vigour. What a pity there is only one of them".

From Martin Bryant, perpetrator of our country's worst massacre at Port Arthur 20 years ago, to alleged hit man and undisputed hard man 'Goldie', feared by both prisoners and guards alike, James Phelps tracks the rise of ISIS gangs, the lethal underground drug and tobacco trade and the threat of contraband phones. From the shiv fights and brawls to the white-collar criminal beat downs, this is an account like never before.

As Australia's most distinguished criminal psychologist, 'Doc' Tim Watson-Munro has assessed over 30,000 'persons of interest' in some of the nation's most notorious court cases, including Hoddle Street gunman Julian Knight, corporate fraudster Alan Bond, Melbourne gangster Alphonse Gangitano and, in recent years, Australia's first terrorist convicts. But the front line of psychology is no place for the fainthearted.

An unprecedented spate of murders in the 1990s earned Goulburn Jail the ominous name 'The Killing Fields'. Inmates sentenced or transferred to the 130-year-old towering menace declared they had been given death sentences. Serial killer Ivan Milat, the 'Terror Five' militants who plotted attacks across Sydney in 2005, Brothers 4 Life founder Bassam Hamzy and gang rapist Bilal Skaf are just a few of the inmates inside Australia's most murderous prison. Meet them all here in Phelps' best-selling audiobook.

In the winter of 1900, Wiradjuri man Jimmy Governor and his brother Joe murdered nine people across New South Wales, in a rampage that caused panic in the colony on the cusp of nationhood. Triggered, it seems, by a racist incident, they killed men, women and children, evading a vast manhunt until they were eventually captured. Joe was shot in the open; Jimmy survived to be put on trial. Thus the last man to be outlawed in the colony was hanged in the new nation, meeting his end in Darlinghurst Gaol as the Federation decorations were taken down.

'The only way to comprehend this tragic story of mine is to write it.' On the 10th of February 2017, there was a sentencing hearing for murder in the Victorian Supreme Court. The young woman in the dock, who sat quietly with her hands in her lap, had perfect skin and light-brown hair tied back as neatly as a private school prefect's. When the judge asked her to confirm her plea, the young woman answered in a clear and polite voice. 'Guilty, Your Honour.' That killer is Mary K. Pershall's beloved daughter, Anna.

Living by his own rules has always been the way of Phil 'Ugly' Mawson. A boxer, a soldier, a bikie, a killer, he has played many roles in his life. After a yearlong stint in Vietnam, he returned to Australia feeling let down by the military and society at large. Seeking brotherhood and belonging, he found what he was looking for when he founded the first Australian chapter of the Gypsy Jokers motorcycle club. In his own words, Ugly explores the ups and downs of a life lived on the fringe and spent chasing the freedom of the open road.

Australia's most prolific serial sexual killers met in prison. They were a complete contrast: Christopher Worrell, the charismatic psychopathic youngster; and James Miller, the older and socially awkward loner. For Miller, it was love at first sight. They developed an ominous sexual bond–proving that opposites can attract–and then kill. Once free, the inseparable tag team slayed as many people as notorious Australian serial killer Ivan Milat. Whereas Milat took a year to murder seven victims, the duo achieved the same in seven short weeks … the last four killed in only six days.

Easter Sunday, 1902, deep in the Carnarvon Ranges a police constable and station manager are slain then later incinerated, their remains stuffed into saddlebags. Accused of the ghoulish crime are two members of the bushranging Kenniff gang, fast gaining notoriety as Queensland's equivalent of the Kelly gang. Yet the murders are a bold escalation from the petty fraud, horse stealing and cattle duffing the gang is known for. Starving and exhausted after three long months on the run, the brothers are finally captured, and so the wheels of justice start to turn.

In 1977, Vera 'Toddie' Hays and Florice 'Beezie' Bessire thought they were about to embark on the trip of a lifetime when Vera's nephew, Vern Todd, offered them a campervan to drive from Germany to India. Little did the women know that Vern and his accomplices would secretly pack two tonnes of hashish into the vehicle along the way. This shocking inside story chronicles Toddie and Beezie's wild ride across continents and oceans to our shores, their arrest by Australian Federal Bureau of Narcotics agents and all that the women faced in the aftermath.

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.

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.

This is the truly remarkable life story of the notorious Ethel Livesey, a serial fraudster and confidence trickster who became a media sensation after she ran out on her society wedding in 1945 and later was arrested for obtaining goods by false pretences. With a prologue by Ethel Livesey's granddaughter, this extraordinary tale of Australia's greatest fraudster is told for the first time in rich and fascinating detail.

In October 1997 a clever young law student at ANU made a bizarre plan to murder her devoted boyfriend after a dinner party at their house. Some of the dinner guests - most of them university students - had heard rumours of the plan. Nobody warned Joe Cinque. He died one Sunday, in his own bed, of a massive dose of rohypnol and heroin. His girlfriend and her best friend were charged with murder. Helen Garner followed the trials in the ACT Supreme Court. Compassionate but unflinching, this is a book about how and why Joe Cinque died.

As a cop, I used to sit on one side of the interview room table facing murderers, child abductors and rapists. Now I'm sitting on the other side: disgraced, forced out of the police and judged to be a criminal. I want to show you what the world looks like from here.

Atop the hierarchy of Australian bushrangers sits Ned Kelly–the ultimate outlaw–and just below him, the tragic figure of Ben Hall, who joined a gang led by a man whose name today is less well known, but in his time was much more famous than any other: Frank Gardiner. Mastermind of the largest gold robbery in Australia’s history, Gardiner led an extraordinary life, the full telling of which is long overdue. In a tough country and among a group of tough men, Gardiner was the toughest of them all.

This book is Chopper's redemption. It is the real story of the man, the criminal and the prisoner, told with black humour and surprising insight.