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Book Extracts

The Good Bloke
Book extract

The Good Bloke

He wanted to be Police Commissioner, but when life as a cop fell apart he was a Mr Fix-It in Sydney’s underbelly, a money smuggler and a jailbird. Yet Charles Staunton reckons one title stands throughout — he’s a good bloke.

art for runaway killer story
Book extract

Unsolved Australia: Lost Boys, Gone Girls

It took a spray of Luminol to show the blood stains on the seemingly spotless couch where Narelle Fraser had sat to question Tony Serrano, but it was what investigators found next that sickened the senior detective.

art for Bronwynne Richardson murder
Book extract

Police vow to find teen beauty queen’s killer

When parents Stan and Noelle Richardson drove by a car parked by the river they simply thought someone was fishing. It was only after their murdered daughter’s body was found at the spot they realised they’d likely passed her killer.

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Our Criminal History
Frank Gardiner's prison record ... Prisoner record of Francis Clarke, alias Francis Christie (alias Frank Gardiner), from Darlinghurst Gaol, 1874.Picture: Courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc., Cincinnati, USA

Australian Heist

‘AHHH!’ screamed Senior Constable Moran, the third shot tearing into his testicle. ‘Jesus save me! My balls — he hit me in the bloody balls!’ It was 1862 and buckshot was flying in Australia’s biggest-ever gold heist.

Book extract
Images for Loose Units book extract

Loose Units

THEY were two rookie cops making their first big bust and determined that the police ‘Glory Boys’ wouldn’t edge them out — but in 1980s’ policing there was so much more to worry about.

NSW
Digital artwork for Daily Telegraph

Inside the minds of Australia’s worst criminals

TIM Watson-Munro has spent much of his career with murderers, sexual predators, hit men and those who kill in fits of rage, and the criminal psychologist admits he knows more than is good for him when it comes to the dark side of human nature.

Book extract
web Binse Book 316 237

Gangland The Great Escapes

WHETHER pointing guns at police and Armaguard vans in Melbourne or busting out of prison, Christopher Binse is as brazen as criminals come. Here’s why “Badness” is one of our baddest crooks.

NSW
Katherine Knight

Depraved killer’s shocking prison persona

Twenty years ago, Katherine Knight committed the unspeakable crime that would see her dubbed Australia’s Hannibal Lecter and locked up, never to be released. Why then do fellow inmates see her as a kind-hearted “Nanna”? WATCH NOW

Book extract
Ashley Coulston, right, with police in 1993.

Motive for share house executions still baffles

THEY were random victims — three young people set on a collision course  with a deadly stranger by an innocent ad for a housemate. Just weeks after the chilling killings, the cold-blooded murderer was ready to strike again, only to be thwarted by exceptional acts of bravery. 

NSW
Ronald Ryan heading for Mascot in police car. Hanged in Pentridge prison, Melbourne in 1967 for murder of prison warder.  pic News Limited.  Victoria / Crime

Noose

SOME believed him innocent, jurors who found him guilty still didn’t think he should hang, but the Premier was determined  that Ronald Ryan would go to the gallows. Australia’s last-man hanged faced his fate “like a small child who had composed himself into calm bravery”. “Whatever you do, do it quickly, ” he told the hangman.

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