When a plan goes badly wrong, nine Australians pay a heavy priceOn 17 April 2005, nine young Australians were arrested in Bali on charges of drug trafficking. Known as the 'Bali 9', some members received the death penalty for their crimes; others are serving lengthy jail sentences. Journalists Cindy Wockner and Madonna King, who were present at the trials and sentencing, have used their investigative skills to piece together the whole story, from arrest to jail to the harrowing fin...

A very personal look at Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. Cindy Wockner was a journalist reporting the story of two surly drug smugglers. She was there from the beginning and would become a good friend of the two changed men.At 12.35 a.m. on 29 April 2015, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were led out in front of a firing squad. Strapped to wooden crosses, they looked straight down the barrels of their killers' rifles. On that day, the Indonesian government did not...

Written from his cell and smuggled out page by page, Colin Martin’s autobiography chronicles an innocent man’s struggle to survive inside one of the world’s most dangerous prisons. After being swindled out of a fortune, Colin was let down by the hopelessly corrupt Thai police. Forced to rely upon his own resources, he tracked down the man who conned him and, drawn into a fight, he accidentally killed that man’s bodyguard. Colin was arrested, denied a fair trial, convicted of murder and thr...

Prison is harsh enough, but as a foreigner (“farang”) in a strange land, jail time is an even more horrifying reality. Rotting in the Bangkok Hilton is a collection of short stories chronicling T. M. Hoy’s descent into the harrowing world of Southeast Asian prison life. Through his eyes, readers will experience the bizarre events of daily life in a Thai maximum security prison: feel the weight of the chains he wears, the stomachaches from lack of food, witness the murders, drug ov...

How did a father with no criminal history come to be on trial for the brutal murder of his wife?It began with a phone call to Brisbane police on 20 April 2012. Allison, wife of real estate agent Gerard Baden-Clay, was missing.When investigating officers arrived at the family home, in one of the city’s wealthiest suburbs, a neatly dressed Gerard was about to send the couple’s three daughters off to school.Scratches on his face were shaving cuts, he t...

Kathryn Bonella lifts the lid on Bali's nightmarish narcotics underworld.Among the island's drug dealers 'It's snowing in Bali' is code that the south-east Asian paradise is full of cocaine. For the men who run the country's drug empires, it's time to get rich and party hard.Snowing in Bali is the story of the drug trafficking and dealing scene that's made Bali one of the world's most important destinations in the global distribution of narcotics. Kathryn B...

Bang Kwang Prison is one of the most notorious penal institutions in the world. Located seven miles north of Bangkok city in the Nonthaburi Province, the prison is home to over 8,000 inmates, among them ruthless killers, rapists, drug traffickers, conmen and thieves.The Bangkok Hilton is understaffed, overcrowded, and filled with inmates who struggle with insanity as they spend the first months of their sentences chained in leg irons. Prisoners outnumber guards by 50 to 1. Until no...

On 7 December 2003 Daniel Morcombe disappeared on the Sunshine Coast, while waiting for a bus. For Bruce and Denise Morcombe - the parents of Daniel - and his brothers, Bradley and Dean, it was apparent within hours that something was very wrong. In the first few days following Daniel's disappearance, Bruce and Denise made a promise to their son that they would never ever stop looking for him, and bring who was responsible to justice.'We will never give up.' As the nightmare of hou...

Sandra Gregory seemed to have the perfect life in Bangkok - until illness, unemployment and political unrest turned it into a nightmare. Desperate to get home by any means possible, she agreed to smuggle an addict's personal supply of heroin. She didn't even make it onto the plane.In this remarkably candid memoir, Sandra Gregory tells the full story of the events leading up to her arrest, the horrific conditions in Lard Yao prison, her trial in a language she didn't understand and how it f...

In 1979, Brett Douglas was a twenty-eight-year-old US Marine Corps veteran working as a commercial tuna fisherman in California. That year, a young man named Bruce Perlowin came looking for professional seamen and found a few, including the author. The fishermen he recruited became a crew that played an integral part in smuggling more than 250 tons of marijuana that FBI agents credited to the Perlowin Conspiracy.The Golden Gate Smuggling Company provides a true, behind-the...

A true insider's story of the Backpacker Murders from the detective who led the team that arrested Ivan Milat.Milat - the serial killer who preyed on young hitchhikers. The backpackers - the innocent victims of a brutal murderer. Belanglo - a place that became synonymous with pure evil.It was the biggest and most complex manhunt in Australian history, an investigation that gripped a nation. Behind the many false leads and dead ends, precious clues emerged t...

Miss Bangkok is a vivid, powerful and moving memoir of a life spent in prostitution in Thailand. Poor and uneducated, Bua Boonmee escaped an abusive marriage only to end up in the go-go bars of Patpong. There, in the notorious red-light district of Bangkok, she succumbed to prostitution in an effort to support her family.Bua’s story is one of resilience and courage in the face of abuse and poverty. Her confessions will make you laugh and cry, cringe and applaud. She will change you...