Biography > True Crime

Using police and court documents, statements, and interviews, this book explores the impact of the Dick Robison murder case on the community of Good Hart, and the stigma that surrounds the popular summer getaway.

In their highly entertaining and often shocking new book James Morton and Susanna Lobez follow up their bestselling Gangland Australia by delving into the world of Australian con artists such as Mario Condello, Helen Demidenko, Christopher Skase, Brenton Jarrett, Peter Foster, Lola Montez and Fairlie Arrow. Here are highly talented men and women and their tricks: changing paper into banknotes, selling other people's property, faking deaths, and forging paintings; promising miracle cures and impersonating aristocracy, preachers, mil... read more

This was not the ending either of them expected. Marcus Einfeld, former Federal Court judge and human rights champion, and his old friend Teresa Brennan, an exuberant, sometimes controversial US-based academic, had each spent years establishing demanding careers and international reputations, to create two lives that, on paper at least, exuded success. Then Einfeld was caught speeding. But rather than pay a small fine, the former judge told a court that Brennan had been driving his car. In reality she had been dead for three years.... read more

Brimming bank vaults. Loot laden trains. Who says crime doesn't pay? Heists is an incredible collection of eighteen of the world's most audacious robberies - tales of ransom, revenge and old-fashioned stick-ups. Investigating the planning, execution and modes of escape, Joseph Cummins reveals the bold and ruthless stories behind some of history's most shocking crimes - both successful and failed. From the gruesome attempt in 1876 to steal Abraham Lincoln's body and hold it for ransom, to the Lufthansa Kennedy Airport Heist in 1978 ... read more

In January 2010 a law-abiding, church-going father of two from Melbourne's leafy eastern suburbs didn't come home after a business trip and his burnt remains were found in a northern suburb - the wrong side of town - a week later. A police investigation uncovered the shocking truth: Herman Rockefeller met with an alcoholic single mum and her older boyfriend for sex and the liaison had gone horribly wrong. Was the respectable, successful businessman (worth $400 million) leading a double life as a swinger? Why didn't he just pay for ... read more

Simon Lowe was a master of his craft. Handsome and charismatic, smart and urbane, he sought out and hunted down vulnerable women - usually women who had money and who craved the exhilaration of romantic love and the sex that goes with it. He told them what they wanted to hear, promised them love with the lot. This is Kay Schubach's story of what happened when she took the plunge with Simon, diving in recklessly to a new relationship and blowing up her life as she knew it. What she couldn't have foreseen was that Simon Lowe was a vi... read more

Before Carl Williams, there was Trimbole: race-fixer, drug boss, Mafia powerbroker, murder contractor, arms dealer. This is his true story with never-before-published material. In the 1970s Robert Trimbole and the Calabrian Mafia ruled Australia's marijuana trade from their castles in Griffith, NSW - dream homes built with drug money.

By day he made thousands of dollars a minute. By night, he spent it as fast as he could on drugs, sex and travel. From the binge that sank a 170-foot motor yacht, crashed a Gulfstream jet, and ran up a $700,000 hotel tab; to the wife and kids who waited for him at home; and the fast-talking, hard-partying young stockbrokers who called him king and did his bidding; here, in his own inimitable words, is the story of the ill-fated genius they called The Wolf of Wall Street. In the 1990s, Jordan Belfort became one of the most infamous ... read more

The true story of a cop taking down a drugs kingpin in the retail heroin capital of the world. Welcome to Alphabet City, Manhattan's most crime-ridden neighbourhood. Murder, rape and violence are hitting record levels the streets, fuelled by a drug problem that’s got the city by the throat so hard it’s either about to die, or explode into full-blown anarchy. It was into this vision of hell that Mike Codella and his partner Gio stepped in the sweat-soaked summer of 1988, two plainclothes cops expected just to pull a ... read more

For two years police detective Colin McLaren disappears off the face of the earth, surfacing in Griffith as a dodgy art dealer with a pretty girlfriend, and talks his way into the Mafia.

The Australian Book of Great Trials tells the story of some of the most interesting and important trials in Australian history, including the first ever civil case, brought by two convicts a short time after the First Fleet landed; the remarkable tale of bushranger and folk hero Ned Kelly; the dingo and the baby at Uluru; and Eddie Mabo's historic fight to establish Indigenous people's ownership of their land. These are more than remarkable stories - they also tell us something about Australian life, what we stand for, and our beli... read more

William Cyril Moxley was hanged at Sydneys Long Bay Gaol in 1932 the first execution in New South Wales for eight years. His crime was the brutal rape and murder of 21-year-old Dorothy Ruth Denzel and the vicious beating and killing of her boyfriend, Frank Barnby Wilkinson. How did this World War I army deserter, small-time thief, conman and police informer come to be the infamous murderer Mad Dog Moxley? Was it simply a robbery gone wrong? Did his blackouts and migraines stem from a head injury as he claimed, or was he the monstr... read more

The Killings called 'Walsh Street' arose when police and armed robbers went to war. Both sides, convinced the others started the war, were righteous in the letting of blood.

"You're unlikely to be gunned down on the street by someone you've never met. But you may well be stabbed to death in the comfort of your own home. More than fifty per cent of all murders in Australia each year are classified as 'domestic', that is, they involve a death caused by another family member, whether it be a mother, father, spouse, de facto, child or stepchild. The Australian Book of Family Murderscontains over twenty of the most remarkable and bizarre cases of death by a family member - from fire, poison, gunshots, knife... read more

'This story is a true account of the birth of outlaw motorcycle clubs in Australia. There was no template for us, it just evolved. It shows our simple creed: loyalty to the club and respect for your brothers.' David Spiteri was a founding member and long-time President of one of Australia's first outlaw motorcycle clubs from its inception in the early 1960s through to the early 2000s. He has been uniquely placed to witness the clubs develop from loose affiliations of riders to the well structured and well connected groups we see t... read more

GANG OF ONE is the remarkable true story of one man's journey from a Glasgow orphanage to a notorious gang-infested prison in Texas. Driven by his desire to return to his son in England and haunted by the increasingly frustrating search for his missing daughter, Gary Mulgrew attempts the impossible task of surviving the prison's gang culture. Told with wit and humanity, GANG OF ONE shows a man constantly confronted by the moral and physical challenges of prison life, where everyone is encouraged to turn their back and 'see nuthin".... read more

Nigel Cawthorne has written, contributed to and edited more than sixty books on subjects as diverse as skiing, finance, sex, war, art, engineering, history and American football. His work has appeared in over 150 newspapers and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic.

'You know me as the Lockerbie bomber. I know that I'm innocent. Here, for the first time, is my true story: how I came to be blamed for Britain's worst mass murder, my nightmare decade in prison and the truth about my controversial release. Please read it and decide for yourself. You are now my jury'. (Abdelbaset al-Megrahi). For the first time the man known as 'the Lockerbie bomber' tells his story. This long-awaited book argues that, far from being an unrepentant terrorist, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was the innocent victim of dirty p... read more

This book offers a riveting account of some of Australia's most fascinating real-life crimes. There are some well-known crimes (Port Arthur massacre, the killing of Dr. Victor Chang, the Granny Killer murders) that have been written in a way to provide new insight and perspective, but also a swathe of other crimes that are not well-known.

They were tagged Dumb and Dumber by the US media in a story that made headlines - and jokes - around the world. Two Australian boys on a working holiday in the snowfields of the American Rocky Mountains decided to rob a bank. Their plan was so hopelessly inept that although they escaped with over US$130,000 after threatening bank staff with a replica pistol, the trail of clues they left ensured they were identified almost immediately. Among the many things they did wrong was to rob a bank where they were regular customers (staff in... read more