The Truth Hurts by Andrew Boe

$32.99 AUD

Category: Crime & Punishment

Criminal justice systems have not been designed to seek the truth. In places like Australia, it remains an adversarial blood sport often distracted by smoke and mirrors. Navigating through it is difficult and uncertain for any one of us but more so if you are poor, not white - or not white enough - not a straight male or have no formal education. Drawing on his experiences as a child of Burmese migrants fleeing a military junta and his evolution from a naive law clerk, too shy to speak, into a lawyer whose ponytailed flamboyance and unbridled willingness to speak truth to power riled many within the legal establishment, Andrew Boe delves into cases that he found unable to leave behind. These cases have shaped who he has become. Taking us from a suicide in the Gibson Desert to a death on Palm Island, places where race relations are often stalled in a colonial time warp; to an isolated rural home, and the question of what is self-defence after a woman's decades of domestic abuse; to meet children abandoned, 'stolen' and then fought over; and into prison interview rooms and courthouses around the country where he defended serial killers, rapists, child sex offenders, murderers as well as the odd politician - holding fast to the premise that either every one of us is entitled to the presumption of innocence or none of us are. THE TRUTH HURTS is an unflinching exploration of the fault lines in our justice system by an outsider who found his way in. With forthright and uncompromising focus, Boe, now a barrister, spares no one, including himself, in this thought-provoking and at times brutal account. He argues that to give each other 'a fair go', we should all first acknowledge the flaws in the system, address our collective weaknesses and contribute to a real conversation about the human cost of not getting to the truth. ...Show more

The Secret Barrister - Stories of the Law and How It's Broken by The Secret Barrister

$18.99 AUD

Category: Crime & Punishment

"I'm a barrister, a job which requires the skills of a social worker, relationship counsellor, arm-twister, hostage negotiator, named driver, bus fare-provider, accountant, suicide watchman, coffee-supplier, surrogate parent and, on one memorable occasion, whatever the official term is for someone taske d with breaking the news to a prisoner that his girlfriend has been diagnosed with gonorrhoea."Welcome to the world of the Secret Barrister. These are the stories of life inside the courtroom. They are sometimes funny, often moving and ultimately life-changing.How can you defend a child-abuser you suspect to be guilty? What do you say to someone sentenced to ten years who you believe to be innocent? What is the law and why do we need it? And why do they wear those stupid wigs?From the criminals to the lawyers, the victims, witnesses and officers of the law, here is the best and worst of humanity, all struggling within a broken system which would never be off the front pages if the public knew what it was really like. Both a searing first-hand account of the human cost of the criminal justice system, and a guide to how we got into this mess, The Secret Barrister wants to show you what it's really like and why it really matters. ...Show more

Son of Escobar: First Born by Roberto Sendoya Escobar

$29.99 AUD

Category: Crime & Punishment

Pablo Escobar was the most notorious drug lord the world has ever seen. He became one of the ten richest men on the planet and controlled 80 per cent of the global cocaine trade before he was shot dead in 1993. This is the long-awaited autobiography of his eldest son, Roberto Sendoya Escobar. His story opens with two helicopter gunships, filled with heavily armed Colombian Special forces personnel led by an MI6 agent, flying into a small village on the outskirts of Bogota in Colombia. The secret mission to recover a stolen cash hoard, culminates in a bloody shoot-out with a group of young Pablo Escobar’s violent gangsters. Several of the men escape, including the young Escobar.As the dust settles in the house, only a little baby is left alive. His distressing cries can be heard as his young mother lies dead beside him. That baby is the author, Roberto Sendoya Escobar. In a bizarre twist of fate, the top MI6 agent who led the mission, takes pity on the child and, eventually, ends up adopting him.Over the years, during his rise to prominence as the most powerful drug lord the world has ever known, Pablo Escobar tries, repeatedly, to kidnap his son. Flanked by his trusty bodyguards, the child, unaware of his true identity, is allowed regular meetings with Escobar and it becomes apparent that the British government is working covertly with the gangster in an attempt to control the money laundering and drug trades.Life becomes so dangerous, however, that the author is packed off from the family mansion in Bogota to an English public school. Many years later in England, as Roberto’s adopted father lies dying in hospital, he hands his son a coded piece of paper which, he says, reveals the secret hiding place of the 'Escobar Missing millions' the world has been searching for! ...Show more

The Arsonist: A Mind on Fire (PB) by Chloe Hooper

$22.99 AUD

Category: Crime & Punishment

On the scorching February day in 2009 that became known as Black Saturday, a man lit two fires in Victoria's Latrobe Valley, then sat on the roof of his house to watch the inferno. In the Valley, where the rates of crime were the highest in the state, more than thirty people were known to police as fire bugs. But the detectives soon found themselves on the trail of a man they didn't know. The Arsonist takes readers on the hunt for this man, and inside the strange puzzle of his mind. It is also the story of fire in this country, and of a community that owed its existence to that very element. The command of fire has defined and sustained us as a species - understanding its abuse will define our future. A powerful real-life thriller written with Hooper's trademark lyric detail and nuance, The Arsonist is a reminder that in an age of fire, all of us are gatekeepers. ...Show more

Most Dangerous Man in America - Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon and the Hunt for the Fugitive King of LSD by L

$34.99 AUD

Category: Crime & Punishment

'It's a rollicking tale that brings to life the antic atmosphere of America in the 'Me' Decade' Wall Street Journal On the moonlit evening of September 12, 1970, an ex-Harvard professor with a genius IQ studies a twelve-foot high fence topped with barbed wire. A few months earlier, Dr. Timothy Leary, t he High Priest of LSD, had been running a gleeful campaign for California governor against Ronald Reagan. Now, Leary is six months into a ten-year prison sentence for the crime of possessing two marijuana cigarettes. Aided by the radical Weather Underground, Leary's escape from prison is the counterculture's union of "dope and dynamite," aimed at sparking a revolution and overthrowing the government. Inside the Oval Office, President Richard Nixon drinks his way through sleepless nights as he expands the war in Vietnam and plots to unleash the United States government against his ever-expanding list of domestic enemies. Antiwar demonstrators are massing by the tens of thousands; homemade bombs are exploding everywhere; Black Panther leaders are threatening to burn down the White House; and all the while Nixon obsesses over tracking down Timothy Leary, whom he has branded "the most dangerous man in America." Based on freshly uncovered primary sources and new firsthand interviews, THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA is an American thriller that takes readers along for the gonzo ride of a lifetime. Spanning twenty-eight months, President Nixon's careening, global manhunt for Dr. Timothy Leary winds its way among homegrown radicals, European aristocrats, a Black Panther outpost in Algeria, an international arms dealer, hash-smuggling hippies from the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, and secret agents on four continents, culminating in one of the trippiest journeys through the American counterculture. ...Show more

Rip in Heaven by Jeanine Cummins

$22.99 AUD

Category: Crime & Punishment

The acclaimed author of AMERICAN DIRT reveals the devastating effects of a shocking tragedy in this landmark true crime book: the first ever to look intimately at the experiences of both the victims and their families. A RIP IN HEAVEN is Jeanine Cummins' story of a night in April, 1991, when her two co usins Julie and Robin Kerry, and her brother, Tom, were assaulted on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River just outside of St. Louis. When, after a harrowing ordeal, Tom managed to escape the attackers and flag down help, he thought the nightmare would soon be over. He couldn't have been more wrong. Tom, his sister Jeanine, and their entire family were just at the beginning of a horrific odyssey through the aftermath of a violent crime, a world of shocking betrayal, endless heartbreak, and utter disillusionment. It was a trial by fire from which no family member would emerge unscathed. ...Show more

The First Stone: 25th Anniversary Edition by Helen Garner

$32.99 AUD

Category: Crime & Punishment

In the autumn of 1992, two young women students at Melbourne University went to the police claiming that they had been indecently assaulted at a party. The man they accused was the head of their co-ed residential college. The First Stone has been reviled and revered. At the time of publication, its auth or was both vilified and lionised by readers. Now, when Garner has achieved the status of one of our most respected literary icons, this story is no less sharp, no less relevant, and no less divisive. 'This is writing of great boldness. . . an intense, eloquent and enthralling work.' - The Australian 'This was never going to be an easy book to write, its pages are bathed in anguish and self-doubt, but suffused also with a white-hot anger.' - Good Weekend 'Garner has ensured one thing: the debate about sexual harassment . . . will now have a very public airing. And it will have it in the language of experience to which all women and men have access.' - The Age 'Travelling with Garner along the complex paths of this sad story is, strangely enough, enjoyable. The First Stone [is] a book worth reading for its writing...' - The Sydney Morning Herald ...Show more

The First Time He Hit Her by Heidi Lemon

$32.99 AUD

Category: Crime & Punishment

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

$22.99 AUD

Category: Crime & Punishment

Susan Orlean's bestseller and New York Times Notable Book is "a sheer delight...as rich in insight and as varied as the treasures contained on the shelves in any local library" (USA TODAY)--a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries. "Everybod y who loves books should check out The Library Book" (The Washington Post). On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library--and if so, who? Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a "delightful...reflection on the past, present, and future of libraries in America" (New York magazine) that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before. In the "exquisitely written, consistently entertaining" (The New York Times) The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries; brings each department of the library to vivid life; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago. "A book lover's dream...an ambitiously researched, elegantly written book that serves as a portal into a place of history, drama, culture, and stories" (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), Susan Orlean's thrilling journey through the stacks reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books--and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country. ...Show more

Missing William Tyrrell by Caroline Overington

$34.99 AUD

Category: Crime & Punishment

   One minute a little boy is playing outside his foster nana's house, the next minute, he's gone. How can a three year old child simply disappear? On Friday 12 September 2014, William Tyrrell - a playful three-year-old boy dressed in a fire-engine red Spider-Man suit - disappears from a quiet street in broad daylight. It's assumed he's lost in the nearby bushland, but despite an intensive search, he's not found, and police start to suspect he's been abducted. No trace of William - not a shoe, not a hair - has ever been found, but now is not the time to surrender. How can a little boy just vanish? We have to find him. From best-selling author and Walkley Award-winning journalist, Caroline Overington, Missing William Tyrrell is a moving and compelling exploration of one of Australia's most baffling and heartbreaking mysteries. ...Show more

The Pretty Girl Killer by Andrew Byrne

$34.99 AUD

Category: Crime & Punishment

This is the story of Christopher Wilder- the surf-loving son of a decorated naval war hero born in the suburbs of Sydney, who became the most wanted man in America - a psychopathic serial killer who slaughtered more than sixteen young women in the USA and is the prime suspect in the infamous Australian Wanda Beach murders. Wilder was handsome and charming, and time and time again he managed to convince beautiful young women that he was a fashion photographer looking to help them start a career in modelling. What followed were some of the most brutal, sadistic crimes the world has ever seen - as well as a years-long police operation, dogged by missed opportunities and bad decisions, to track the killer down. Featuring new evidence unearthed from case files and interviews with FBI agents, witnesses and survivors, some of whom have spoken for the first time since the horrendous crimes were committed, The Pretty Girl Killer takes us right into the mind and moment of one of Australia's most heinous exports. ...Show more

Doing Justice - A Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law by Preet Bharara

$22.99 AUD

Category: Crime & Punishment

'Simply, utterly brilliant. Bursting with humility and humanity' THE SECRET BARRISTER 'A survival guide for the Trump era' GUARDIAN Banned by Putin, fired by Trump. And now he's free to talk. Multi-million-dollar fraud. Terrorism. Mafia criminality. Russian espionage. For eight years Preet Bharara, Uni ted States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, successfully prosecuted some of the most high-profile crimes in America. Along the way he gained notoriety as the 'Sheriff of Wall Street', was banned from Russia by Vladimir Putin and earned the distinction of being one of the first federal employees fired by Trump. In Doing Justice Bharara takes us into the gritty, tactically complex, often sensational world of America's criminal justice system. We meet the wrongly accused and those who have escaped scrutiny for too long, the fraudsters and mobsters, investigators and interrogators, snitches and witnesses. We learn what justice is and the basics of building a case, and how judgement must be delivered not only with toughness, but with calmness, care and compassion. This is not just a book about the law. This is a book about integrity, leadership, decision-making and moral reasoning o and one that teaches us how to think and act justly in our own lives. ...Show more