Lawyer X by Patrick Carlyon; Anthony Dowsley (As told to)

$34.99 AUD

Category: Crime & Punishment

nderbelly meets Molly's Game - the true crime investigation that rewrote the story of Melbourne's infamous gangland war and triggered a royal commission. Melbourne's gangland war was an era dominated by murders, stings, hits, drug busts, corruption and greed - inspiring bestselling books and even a pop ular TV series, Underbelly. It took the police a decade to curtail the violence and bring down criminal kingpins Carl Williams, Tony Mokbel and their accomplices. When the police finally closed the case file, just how they really won the war, with the help of an unlikely police informer, would become a closely guarded secret and its exposure, the biggest legal scandal of our time. Lawyer X is the scandalous, true story of how a promising defence barrister from a privileged background broke all the rules - becoming both police informer and her client's lover - sharing their secrets and shaping the gangland war that led to sensational arrests and convictions. The story of how Nicola Gobbo became Lawyer X, and why, is a compelling study in desperation and determination. Lawyer X is the definitive story of Melbourne's gangland wars and its most glamorous and compelling central character, based on the ground-breaking work of investigative journalists Anthony Dowsley and Patrick Carlyon, who broke the story for the Herald Sun in 2014, and their five-year struggle to reveal the truth about the identity of Lawyer X. ...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 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

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 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

Furious Hours - Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep

$19.99 AUD

Category: Crime & Punishment

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION A BARACK OBAMA BOOK OF THE YEAR A SUNDAY TIMESBOOK OF THE YEAR AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A triumph on every level. One of the losses to literature is that Harper Lee never found a way to tell a gothic true-c rime story she'd spent years researching. Casey Cep has excavated this mesmerizing story and tells it with grace and insight and a fierce fidelity to the truth.' DAVID GRANN, author of Killers of the Flower Moon _____________________________ The stunning story of an Alabama serial killer and the true-crime book that Harper Lee worked on obsessively in the years after To Kill a Mockingbird Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members for insurance money in the 1970s. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell's murderer was acquitted - thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the Reverend. As Alabama is consumed by these gripping events, it's not long until news of the case reaches Alabama's - and America's - most famous writer. Intrigued by the story, Harper Lee makes a journey back to her home state to witness the Reverend's killer face trial. Harper had the idea of writing her own In Cold Blood,the true-crime classic she had helped her friend Truman Capote research. Lee spent a year in town reporting on the Maxwell case and many more years trying to finish the book she called The Reverend. Now Casey Cep brings this story to life, from the shocking murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South. At the same time, she offers a deeply moving portrait of one of the country's most beloved writers and her struggle with fame, success, and the mystery of artistic creativity. This is the story Harper Lee wanted to write. This is the story of why she couldn't. _____________________________ 'Fascinating ... Cep has spliced together a Southern-gothic tale of multiple murder and the unhappy story of Lee's literary career, to produce a tale that is engrossing in its detail and deeply poignant... Cep spends the first third of Furious Hoursfollowing the jaw-dropping trail of murders ... Engrossing ... Cep writes about all this with great skill, sensitivity and attention to detail.' SUNDAY TIMES 'It's been a long time since I picked up a book so impossible to put down. Furious Hours made me forget dinner, ignore incoming calls, and stay up reading into the small hours. It's a work of literary and legal detection as gripping as a thriller. But it's also a meditation on motive and mystery, the curious workings of history, hope, and ambition, justice, and the darkest matters of life and death. Casey Cep's investigation into an infamous Southern murder trial and Harper Lee's quest to write about it is a beautiful, sobering, and sometimes chilling triumph.' HELEN MACDONALD, author of H is for Hawk 'This story is just too good ... Furious Hoursbuilds and builds until it collides with the writer who saw the power of Maxwell's story, but for some reason was unable to harness it. It lays bare the inner life of a woman who had a world-class gift for hiding ... this book makes a magical leap, and it goes from being a superbly written true-crime story to the sort of story that even Lee would have been proud to write.' MICHAEL LEWIS, author of Moneyballand The Big Short ...Show more

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

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

The First Time He Hit Her by Heidi Lemon

$32.99 AUD

Category: Crime & Punishment

Murder Maps - Crime Scenes Revisited. Phrenology to Fingerprint. 1811-1911 by Drew Gray

$49.99 AUD

Category: Crime & Punishment

Elegant period maps and compelling crime analysis illuminate this disquieting volume, which reexamines the most captivating and intriguing homicides of the nineteenth century. Organized geographically, the elements of each murder--from the prior movements of both killer and victim to the eventual locati on of the body--are meticulously replotted using archival maps and bespoke plans, taking readers on a perilous journey around the murder hot spots of the world.From the "French Ripper," Joseph Vacher, who roamed the French countryside brutally mutilating and murdering at least eleven people, to H. H. Holmes and his "Murder Castle" in Chicago, crime expert Dr. Drew Gray recounts the details of each case. His forensic examination uncovers both the horrifying details of the crimes themselves and the ingenious detective work that led to the capture of the murderers. Throughout the book, Gray highlights the development of police methods and technology, from the introduction of the police whistle to the standardization of the mug shot to the use of fingerprinting and radiotelegraphy in apprehending criminals.Vividly recreating over one hundred individual murder cases through historic maps, photographs, newspaper excerpts, court papers, and police reports, Murder Maps is perfect for everyone interested in criminal history, forensics, or the macabre. ...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