Playing Dead by Wendy Lewis

$9.99 AUD

$29.99 (66% off)

Category: True Crime

Pretending to be dead is one of the most bizarre ways to opt out of society. Despite the obvious risks, a surprising number of people attempt to leave their old life behind by faking suicide. And the results can be unbelievably madcap.

The Old Man and the Gun (FTI) And Other Tales of True Crime by David Grann

$7.99 AUD

$19.99 (60% off)

Category: True Crime

Now a major motion picture starring Robert Redford and Sissy Spacek, The Old Man and the Gun is here joined by two other riveting true-crime tales.   "The Old Man and the Gun" is the incredible story of a bank robber and prison escape artist who modeled himself after figures like Pretty Boy Floyd and who, even in his seventies, refuses to retire. "True Crime" follows the twisting investigation of a Polish detective who suspects that a novelist planted clues in his fiction to an actual murder. And "The Chameleon" recounts how a French imposter assumes the identity of a missing boy from Texas and infiltrates the boy's family, only to soon wonder whether he is the one being conned. In this mesmerizing collection, David Grann shows why he has been called a "worthy heir to Truman Capote" and "simply the best narrative nonfiction writer working today," as he takes the reader on a journey through some of the most intriguing and gripping real-life tales from around the world. ...Show more

Operation Relentless by Damien Lewis

$9.99 AUD

$32.99 (69% off)

Category: True Crime

'The Night Manager meets Narcos' Saul David 'To catch this criminal took incredible courage and skill. This is James Bond meets Jason Bourne' Bear Grylls The new bestseller from the author of Zero Six Bravo By 2007 Viktor Bout had become the world's foremost arms dealer. Known as the 'Merchant of Death' he was both "Public Enemy No. 1" to the global intelligence agencies and a ruthless criminal worth around six billion dollars. For years Bout had eluded capture, meanwhile building up a labyrinthine network of airlines selling weapons to order to dictators, rebels, despots and terror groups worldwide. He was hunted by the CIA, NSA, MI6, as well sought by the United Nations for being their top global sanctions buster. Holed up in Moscow - from where he ran a suite of offices selling anything from AK47s to state-of-the-art helicopter gunships and anti-aircraft missiles - he was shielded by a Russian state that was a partner in his dark dealings. In short, Bout appeared utterly invulnerable and beyond any hope of capture. Step forward former SAS man Mike Snow. After serving in the Regiment, Snow had worked as a bush pilot in Africa, where he'd got to know Bout well. Via its own secretive, shadow network, Snow was approached by the US DEA, the Drugs Enforcement Agency. The DEA agents had one question for him: was Snow able to get to Viktor Bout? This is the incredible tale of OPERATION RELENTLESS, the top-secret mission that Snow and a handful of DEA operatives launched to entrap Viktor Bout - a story that ranges from the steamy jungles of Colombia to the ice-bound streets of Moscow, and from horrific bloodshed and tyranny in the Congo, to a snatch operation like no other. It may read like an implausible thriller, but every word of Operation Relentless is true. ...Show more

Snowing in Bali by BONELLA, KATHRYN

$9.99 AUD

$19.99 (50% off)

Category: True Crime

Perfect Stranger: A True Story of Desire and Obsession by Kay Schubach

$19.99 AUD

$29.95 (33% off)

Category: True Crime

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 th e 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 violent narcissist with a criminal history, who had done time for previous crimes against women. This is an insight into domestic violence in a place we don't expect to see it - Sydney with harbour views and a glass of French champagne. This extraordinarily candid account of what happened to Kay is like watching a car crash - terrible but impossible to look away. Part psychological thriller, part true crime, part cautionary tale, this is an extraordinary insight into what a woman will do for love and the promise of a baby - and at what cost. ...Show more

Murder at the Fort: A Double Homicide Cold Case and Cover Up! by Bob Marmion

$7.99 AUD

$29.99 (73% off)

Category: True Crime

Early one cold, wintry morning in late May 1942, the bullet-ridden body of Driver Roy Willis was found on the side of the road. He had been shot a number of times with a military revolver. Despite extensive enquiries by some of the Victoria Police's most experienced homicide detectives, the murderer was not found. Then three months later, the killer struck again. In September 1942 Gunner John Hulston went missing whilst on guard duty. His gun crew immediately began a search. Two soldiers followed what appeared to be drag marks from the gate down towards the beach. They saw a figure some way off and thinking it was Hulston, they called out to him. Instead of a friendly reply, they were met with a barrage of bullets. The figure ran off and disappeared towards the camp. Incredibly the garrison was not turned out to search for the missing man or the mysterious figure. The searchlights which could have turned the night into day along the beach, were not activated. Hulston's rifle and bayonet were found in the water. His torn trousers were also found on the beach. His body was eventually recovered further along the coastline, 10 days later. Like Driver Willis, back in May, he had also been shot in the chest with a .455 calibre army revolver. As with any good murder mystery, this story has more twists and turns than the Great Ocean Road. They range from black market operations, confessions, suspects identified in later years, lost or missing police files, disagreements between the police and the army over the investigation, and an attempted cover-up that went all the way to the wartime Deputy Prime Minister's office. ...Show more

Last Words: The Hanging of Ronald Ryan by Barry Dickins

$9.99 AUD

$24.99 (60% off)

Category: True Crime

From acclaimed playwright and writer Barry Dickins, Last Words is the story of Ronald Ryan, the last man hanged in Australia. Fifty years after his death, questions remain unanswered. Ryan had been found guilty of murdering prison officer George Hodson during an escape from Pentridge Prison with fellow inmate Peter Walker. But did he really fire the bullet that killed Hodson? On 3 February 1967, despite public outrage and vocal protests from wide-ranging community groups, Ryan became the last person to be legally executed in Australia. It was the first time in 20 years that the death penalty had been enforced by the state. Many thought that Ryan's execution was Victorian Premier Henry Bolte's attempt to bolster his chances of winning the upcoming Victorian election, during which he ran a campaign promoting his law-and-order agenda. Last Words is as much about the hanged man as much as it is about the trauma of his family, and the political opportunism behind the decision to proceed with the hanging. In Dickins' lyrical prose he takes readers into the last weeks of Ryan's life and brings to life this infamous man whose personal story has gone undocumented until now. ...Show more

Hate Mail by Mark Morri

$19.99 AUD

$34.99 (42% off)

Category: True Crime

Sydney, 1998. Personal trainer Brett Boyd arrives home to find a package waiting in the driveway. It's addressed to his girlfriend, model and part-time escort Simone Farrow. Hours later, Boyd is in hospital, fighting for his life. The parcel was a bomb that had exploded in his face, leaving him badly di sfigured and lucky to be alive. Who was behind such a violent and calculated attack? What did they want? And why was the parcel addressed to his girlfriend? Suspicion immediately falls onto Boyd's former business partner, a rising TV star named Roberto de Heredia. But it turns out that there was much more to their 'business' than anyone had imagined, and the investigation leads straight to Kings Cross, the beating heart of Sydney's organised crime scene that has just descended into chaos in the wake of a royal commission into police corruption. De Heredia is soon arrested for the bombing, but while out on bail, he fakes his death and flees the country using a false passport. It's not until years later, long after he thinks he is safe living under a different name on the sunny coast of Spain, that two Aussie cops unearth the cold case file and decide that it's not over. And so ensues an international manhunt to see de Heredia extradited to Australia and brought to justice. Veteran crime reporter and bestselling author Mark Morri has followed these extraordinary events since the very beginning, and this book is filled with extensive interviews with detectives, crooks and the star witnesses. HATE MAIL is a gripping account of one of Sydney's most unbelievable and notorious cases, a story twenty years in the making. ...Show more

The Prisoner by Kerry Tucker

$19.99 AUD

$34.99 (42% off)

Category: True Crime

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Can You Ever Forgive Me? - Memoirs of a Literary Forger by Lee Israel

$9.99 AUD

$19.99 (50% off)

Category: True Crime

Before turning to her life of crime, running a one-woman forgery business out of a phone booth in a Greenwich Village bar, and dodging the FBI, Lee Israel had a legitimate, even celebrated, career as an author of biographies. Her first book on Tallulah Bankhead was a New York Times bestseller, and her s econd on the late journalist and reporter Dorothy Kilgallen made a splash in the headlines when Lee revealed in her research that Kilgallen had perhaps been murdered before she could speak publicly about her final, private interview with Oswald-assassin Jack Ruby. With her reputation soaring as well as her advances, Lee signed on for a biography of cosmetics giant Estee Lauder--and almost instantly, Lauder herself made it clear through lawyer and mouthpiece Roy Cohn that she would not cooperate and would be writing her own side of the story. The biography was a disaster and Lee's career began to sink along with it. By 1990, almost broke and desperate to hang onto her Upper West Side studio and care for her adored cat Jersey, Lee made a bold and irreversable career change: inspired by a letter she'd received once from Katharine Hepburn, and armed with her considerable skills as a researcher and celebrity biographer, she began to forge letters in the voices of literary greats. Between 1990 and 1991, she wrote more than 300 letters in the voices of, among others, Dorothy Parker, Louise Brooks, Edna Ferber, Lillian Hellman, and Noel Coward--and sold the forgeries to memorabilia and autograph dealers, beginning in New York and soon across the country. For a first-timer, Lee was a fairly meticulous criminal; she invented stories to validate the provenance of her letters in an eccentric, deceased cousin named Sidney; she purchased and utilized a number of vintage typewriters that the celebrities would have used; and above all, she used her enormous talent as a parody writer to inhabit the voices of the names she chose to impersonate on paper. These letters make for some of the most entertaining and utterly hilarious reading around. In addition to her creative endeavors, though, she began to steal original letters from libraries and research archives on the east coast and alternate them into her repertoire. Unfortunately, circumstances and sheer luck caught up with Lee after almost two years of pulling the act off -- one or two dealers followed up on their suspicions some of her letters weren't authentic, and Lee was told in secret by a dealer that a Grand Jury was convening against her in New York. Mysteriously, nothing came to pass, but several months later, as she was leaving a restaurant an FBI agent confronted her and told her in no uncertain terms that she was under investigation and that her recent accomplice had already testified against her. In the harrowing weeks and months that followed, Lee underwent a trial and was lucky enough to avoid a jail term; she was sentenced to house arrest and a probationary period--and she was barred for life from all libraries and research facilities in the United States. Lee cooperated with the Feds to recover the original letters in circulation, however, there are still many of the 300-plus letters she wrote and forged herself still in circulation. No one can deny that she committed a serious crime and that her actions--especially stealing from libraries, which she felt most contrite about--were reprehensible, although it also simply can't be denied that Lee Israel's story is a fascinating one, and a completely irresistable read. As a writer, she produced some of her best material--even for fans of the writers she imitated these letters are delightful and seductive. ...Show more

Deadline by Simon Bouda

$9.99 AUD

$32.99 (69% off)

Category: True Crime

This book covers all the major news stories of the last 25 years - including the Anita Cobby Murder, the Granny Killer and the Backpacker Murders, as well as natural disasters and political controversies. Simon also tells his own story, of being on the police rounds and working for a national news netwo rk, as well as his support for the Black Dog (Depression) Foundation which saw him ride a motorcycle across America and around Australia. ...Show more

The Last Bushrangers by Mike Munro

$14.99 AUD

$34.99 (57% off)

Category: True Crime | Reading Level: 4 Non Fiction

The story of Australia's last bushranging gang - the murderous Kenniffs. Easter Sunday, 1902, deep in the Carnarvon Ranges a police constable and station manager are slain then later incinerated, their remains stuffed into saddlebags. Accused of the ghoulish crime are two members of the bushranging Ken niff gang, fast gaining notoriety as Queensland's equivalent of the Kelly gang. Yet the murders are a bold escalation from the petty fraud, horse stealing and cattle duffing the gang is known for. Starving and exhausted after three long months on the run, the brothers are finally captured, and so the wheels of justice start to turn. The story of the Kenniffs has fascinated Mike Munro for decades - ever since he found out these last bushrangers were his family. If not for Mike's grandfather illegally changing his name in shame from Kenniff to Munro, this major figure in Australian television would be known to us as Mike Kenniff. But who were Mike's relatives? What drove them to their life of crime? And were the brothers really responsible for such terrible murders? In answering these questions Mike Munro takes us back to the dawn of Federation, when bush skills and horsemanship could help outlaws escape the police, when remote pastoralists were vulnerable targets for thieves and marauders, when race and class divides were entrenched - but resented - and when brutal, feckless outlaws faced the ultimate punishment. This is a story that is both gripping and personal, and an insight into an Australia just coming of age. PRAISE FOR THE LAST BUSHRANGERS 'All families have a secret ... but Mike's is a doozy! This touching, TRUE story is a terrific read!' Di Morrissey ...Show more