Showing results by publisher "Wavesound from W. F. Howes Ltd" in True Crime

They'll Never Hold Me is the true story of an antihero with a code of honour who captured the public's hearts and minds even as he enraged the cops and the establishment. Brilliantly researched and written by Michael Adams, of the Forgotten Australia podcast, this never-before-told tale takes us beyond the public adventures that made Simmo into Public Enemy No. 1 to reveal the haunting tragedies he was trying to outrun – and the terrible fate that even he might not escape.

July 2014, a lonely road at twilight outside Croppa Creek, New South Wales: 80-year-old farmer Ian Turnbull takes out a .22 and shoots environmental officer Glen Turner in the back. On one side, a farmer hoping to secure his family’s wealth on the richest agricultural soil in the country. On the other, his obsession: the government man trying to apply environmental laws.

When Mark McKenna set out to write a history of the centre of Australia, he had no idea what he would discover. One event in 1934 - the shooting at Uluru of Aboriginal man Yokunnuna by white policeman Bill McKinnon, and subsequent Commonwealth inquiry - stood out as a mirror of racial politics in the Northern Territory at the time. But then, through speaking with the families of both killer and victim, McKenna unearthed new evidence that transformed the historical record and the meaning of the event for today.

The shocking true story of a serial killer in 1930s Melbourne. November, 1930. One sunny Saturday afternoon, 12-year-old Mena Griffiths was playing in the park when she was lured away by an unknown man. Hours later, her strangled body was found, mouth gagged and hands crossed over her chest, in an abandoned house. Only months later, another girl was murdered, the similarities between the cases undeniable. Crime in Melbourne had taken a shocking new turn: this was the work of a serial killer, a homicidal maniac.

Zak Grieve grew up in an outback town, at the crossroads between right and wrong, white and black, punishment and forgiving. Convicted of a brutal killing despite even the judge saying he wasn't there when it happened, he spent years writing letters describing his hopes and dreams, his role in what happened, and how when the real world came down on him with a ton of punishment, he wasn't ready. This is a book about growing up, about dying and about writing. In the end, it is only Zak's imagination, given life in the novels he also writes inside prison, that hold the key to his survival.

In 2023 the curtain finally came down on Brian Houston. The rock star of Pentecostalism, former Global Senior Pastor of Hillsong Church, was acquitted of concealing his father's sexual abuse of a minor, but it was too late. His glittering megachurch had disowned him. How had it come to this? And how did Hillsong, the brightest star of international evangelical Christianity, fall to earth so spectacularly?

Detective Peter Seymour has seen every type of death imaginable in his time in the NSW Coroner's Court and, after many years in law enforcement, the tragedies are beginning to take their toll. Dealing with death day in day out becomes too much for Seymour and this seasoned veteran starts to grapple with overwhelming feelings of fear and doubt. He decides to return to the police force hoping the operational work might offer some reprieve. Fate would have it otherwise as he is thrust straight back into an intense murder investigation.

Prison Break reveals the fascinating stories of daring prison break-outs, elaborate escape tunnels and the extraordinary cavers who spent weeks in dark, freezing caves 2000 metres underground! Learn about the escape from Stalag Luft III, the tunnel under the Berlin Wall and hidden worlds underground.

Kate Kelly has always been overshadowed by her famous brother Ned, but the talented young woman was a popular public figure in her own right. This moving biography tells her astonishing story in full for the first time. Kate Kelly, the daring sister of legendary bushranger Ned Kelly, was mysteriously found dead in a lagoon outside the town of Forbes in 1898.

It all started with a ruthless murder. An ex-boxer and petty police informer was efficiently disposed of, sending a ghastly warning to others. That would have been the end of it, had not a shark, in a million to one chance, vomited up the victim's arm in an aquarium and shone an unwelcome light into some very dark places. With so much at stake, the guilty closed ranks, and gradually, with intimidation and money, and the murder of a mate who they feared would betray them, they re-imposed their control, and the light was turned off again.

On a balmy Townsville night in 1944, young serviceman Warwick Meale is found beaten to death under a bridge. The army and police do not, or will not, conduct a proper investigation and history forgets the killer - until now. Nearly 80 years on, Warwick's descendant Jonathan Butler dusts off the case and chases the leads that were there all along. The Boy in the Dress exhumes secrets of life on the home front during World War II, where tensions between soldiers boiled over, new expressions of sexuality flourished and the threat of invasion catapulted the status quo into disarray.

This is the truly remarkable life story of the notorious Ethel Livesey, a serial fraudster and confidence trickster who became a media sensation after she ran out on her society wedding in 1945 and later was arrested for obtaining goods by false pretences. With a prologue by Ethel Livesey's granddaughter, this extraordinary tale of Australia's greatest fraudster is told for the first time in rich and fascinating detail.

Australia's most prolific serial sexual killers met in prison. They were a complete contrast: Christopher Worrell, the charismatic psychopathic youngster; and James Miller, the older and socially awkward loner. For Miller, it was love at first sight. They developed an ominous sexual bond–proving that opposites can attract–and then kill. Once free, the inseparable tag team slayed as many people as notorious Australian serial killer Ivan Milat. Whereas Milat took a year to murder seven victims, the duo achieved the same in seven short weeks … the last four killed in only six days.

In her youth, amidst the throes of a reckless grief, aspiring Australian writer Marele Day is caught up in a shipwreck adventure and forges an unlikely bond with an international fugitive travelling under a pseudonym. For the next 30 years they correspond before reuniting, both older and wiser, in France.

Anna-Jane Cheney was a vivacious, popular and talented lawyer with an impeccable middle-class upbringing. The man she loved, Henry Keogh, was a divorced Irish migrant with three children. She died just six weeks before their wedding date, and Keogh was convicted of her murder. Journalist Graham Archer became fascinated by the case. It wasn’t a matter of guilt or innocence but that a man could be sentenced to life without having received a fair trial.