Author(s): Peter Corris

True Crime

Drawing on crime-scene photos, witness testimony, trial transcripts, and newspaper articles, this novel blends the author's imagination with a true crime case. William Cyril Moxley was hanged at Sydney's Long Bay Gaol in 1932--the first execution in New South Wales in eight years. His crimes were 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, con man, and police informer come to be the infamous murderer known as "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 Moxley the monstrous sociopath described by the prosecution and the tabloids? Answering these and many other questions, this suspenseful narrative reconstructs two murders from long ago.