The Russell Street Bombing

In 1986 a bomb went off outside the main police headquarters in Russell Street Melbourne. The Russell Street Bombing looks at the consequences of this shocking act of violence from the point of view of an entire city, the police force that was targeted, and in particular one 19-year-old victim. Welcome to Crime Shots - short, sharp, true crime stories from Australia's past and present.

A powerful Melbourne crime family. A teenage protected witness. The killing of two policemen. Terror. Violence. Loyalty. On a cool spring morning two policemen were lured into a leafy street in Melbourne, Australia and gunned down. Police investigators pulled out all stops to find the killers, for an astounding two and a half years. Then the men they found were acquitted. The police's case against the two brothers and two friends of their family had fallen apart. The accused were free to leave the court. In Walsh Street, Australia's most famous criminal family comes to life: Kath Pettingill, the fierce matriarch; her eldest son, Dennis, drug dealer and killer; her daughter, Vicki, a protected police witness; her youngest, Trevor, and her other son Victor Peirce, two of the four men charged with the murders; and her grandson Jason-harassed by Kath's dogs and the family's enemies alike. Includes a new foreword from the author with updates on all the major players.

Soon after watching the twin towers falling in New York, some of those with business responsibilities were already asking themselves whether people would be willing to work in tall buildings ever again. Is work too risky? How can people be expected to attend work in what might now be seen as precarious and vulnerable workplaces and cities? Although, thankfully, large scale terrorist attacks are infrequent, the world's cities, and the businesses to which they are home, have been put on notice that it can come to any place at any time. In Terrorism, the Worker and the City, Luke Howie considers what steps managers and employees can and should take to protect their businesses from such an amorphous and indefinable threat. Deftly combining theoretical insight with empirical research, he reveals how, despite an appearance of 'business as usual', fear; anxiety; and suspicion permeate workplaces, even in cities that may not be at the top of any terrorist group's target list. Using the Australian city of Melbourne, a cosmopolitan city and major business centre with nearly four million people, as a metaphor for other such cities around the world, Dr Howie's research has uncovered that even where they don't perceive a high level threat, business managers who might face having to account for themselves to some post event Inquiry have taken action in consequence of the situation. Often, that action amounts to the introduction of what can be described as 'Simulated Security'. This cannot ever provide certain protection from terrorist attack, but it may be the best we can reasonably do. There is also evidence that it can be effective in terms of providing the reassurance to counter the terrorist objective of disrupting normal life through fear. With its rigorous research compared with other more speculative works on this subject, Terrorism, the Worker and the City will appeal to city and business leaders and managers, and security professionals, as well as those in governmenta

The book that inspired Channel Nine's Underbelly: Chopper From streetfighter to standover man, gunman to underworld executioner, Mark Brandon 'Chopper' Read was earmarked for death a dozen times but somehow lived to tell the tale. This is it. Chopper: From The Inside became a best-seller on its release in 1991, spawning a series of books that have today sold over 500,000 copies around the world. Chopper also inspired an acclaimed feature film, countless art and stage shows and, in 2018, the major Channel Nine TV series Underbelly: Chopper. From The Inside is the first shot in the Chopper canon - written from his gaol cell and laced with the brutal humour that made this Australian crime commando a true legend of the underworld.

Nominated in the True Crime Category for the 8th Davitt Awards. These awards recognise the best crime novels and true crime books written by Australian women, published in 2007. 29 October 2007 marks twenty years since the death of five prisoners in a riot and fire in the infamous Jika Jika high-security unit. This book resurrects these events and invites us to learn urgent lessons in our current age of supermax and privatised prisons, detention of asylum seekers and the controversial use of indefinite detention under the banner of a 'war on terror'. Imprisoning Resistance provides an experiential account of life and death in the controversial Pentridge Prison Jika Jika High-Security Unit in Victoria during the 1980s. One of Australia's first hi-tech supermax prisons, Jika Jika was designed to house and manage the system's 'worst of the worst' prisoners. Several years of deaths in custody, multiple escapes, assaults, murders, prisoner campaigns and protests, hunger strikes and allegations of prison staff brutality escalated in 1987 to a dramatic protest fire that resulted in the deaths of five prisoners. The prison was closed and a series of inquiries were commissioned. Bree Carlton revisits this uncomfortable past and reconstructs events leading up to and surrounding the fire and deaths, while critically analysing official responses to the discreditable episodes, crises and deaths that plagued Jika Jika.

All eleven volumes of Chopper's original memoirs ... unchopped Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read is Australia's most famous standover man and one of its most prolific authors. Now, for the very first time, all eleven volumes of Chopper's memoirs are together in this special collector's edition. From his criminal youth to his time in prison to his life as a reformed man, the entire journey is here. This omnibus edition contains the following complete and unabridged books: From the Inside: Chopper 1 Hits and Memories: Chopper 2 How to Shoot Friends and Influence People: Chopper 3 For the Term of His Unnatural Life: Chopper 4 Pulp Faction: Chopper 5 No Tears for a Tough Guy: Chopper 6 The Singing Defective: Chopper 7 The Sicilian Defence: Chopper 8 The Final Cut: Chopper 9 The Popcorn Gangster: Chopper 10.5 Last Man Standing: Chopper 11 Chopper is an icon in popular Australian culture and in the criminal underworld. Find out why in Chopper's own words.

'It was just after dawn on Thursday, November 14, 1991. The hatch on the cell door slid back. I could see the screw's face through the slit. I've seen better heads on a pig dog, but this time I could have kissed him.' Underworld standover man and executioner Mark Brandon 'Chopper' Read was released from Pentridge Prison in November, 1991, vowing never to return. He became an instant celebrity when his autobiography Chopper: From the Inside hit the bestseller lists (it also holds the record as Australia's most shop-lifted book). Six months later, he was back in jail charged with the shooting of a biker, and busy writing his second volume of memoirs. In this sequel, Chopper gives us more stories of crime and criminals that made his first book an international publishing sensation, from bookie robberies to hitmen, slavery and kidnapping. Written with dark humour and an intimate knowledge of some of Australia's most notorious criminals and crimes, Hits and Memories is a unique look at Australia's underbelly.

Vikki Petraitis took to writing true crime because, unlike crime fiction, it was so raw and it told the story of real people, real grief, real loss, real horror.A school teacher by day, Vikki had no idea that writing one book about one unsolved murder would give her a second career that has run alongside her chosen profession for 25 years.She has researched, investigated and written about real Australian crimes, from the well-known to the obscure; and interviewed countless police, crime scene professionals, victims, survivors and families. She did ride-alongs with members of Victoria Police so she could learn about their most memorable cases, and found herself right there with them when a serial killer's third victim was found. Vikki spent time with the dog squad learning how the four-legged police officers are trained to work with their two-legged partners. And she's become biographer to two well-known former cops, and to one of the many victims of institutional child abuse. Her career as a true crime writer has resulted in 13 books and counting, with subjects and titles as diverse as The Frankston Serial Killer, Crime Scene Investigations, Forensics, Cops, Once a Copper: Brian 'the Skull' Murphy, and the one that started it all - The Phillip Island Murder. Inside the Law is Vikki's life in crime; a collection of her favourite, personally influential, most memorable stories with a fresh narrative thread of the why, when and how she came to write them.