A real-life murder and legal drama set in the violent world of 1930s Melbourne. It was the crime that shocked Melbourne in 1936. An armed robbery of a teenage government messenger and the brutal murder of his elderly unarmed escort. Three known criminals were accused and tried four times but the prosecution and the police could never positively prove their guilt. The real-life violent Melbourne underworld in the 1930s is portrayed, together with the machinations of some fascinating charact...

Michael Stone was born in East Belfast in 1955. In 1988 he was sentenced to 800 years in prison. He served twelve years in the Maze prison before being released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. He is now an artist, and proponent of the peace process.

Barlinnie is one of the most notorious prisons in the world and for a hundred years it has held Glasgow's toughest and most violent men, swept up from the city streets. Ten men died on its gallows in the infamous Hanging Shed, including serial killer Peter Manuel. It has sparked rooftop protests and cell block riots, and been home to godfathers of crime like Arthur Thompson Snr and Walter Norval. Barlinnie was also the scene of one of the most controversial experiments in penal history, th...

Johnny Adair was born in the Shankhill Road area of Belfast, Northern Ireland. The youngest of seven children he was raised a Protestant. As a teenager Johnny and his gang would roam the streets looking for Catholics for no other reason then religion and he bears many scars and war wounds from endless street battles. A young Loyalist, Johnny earned his reputation as a paramilitary leader long before he fully understood the politics but quickly came to realise the purpose of the paramilitar...

"The Executioner's Bible" tells the story of these working-class men who carried out this gruesome profession until its abolition in the late 1960's. Despite often being unassuming and quiet professionals, men like Albert Pierrepoint, William Billington and many other Chief and Assistant executioners made a name for themselves in a world hungry for salacious and gruesome news. Read about the bungling hangmen sacked for incompetence; drunken executioners dismissed for brawling; one hangman ...

There cannot be many cities where crime could mean anything from singing a seditious song to stealing a ship, but nineteenth-century Glasgow was a unique place with an amazing dynamism. Immigrants poured in from Ireland and the Highlands, while the factories, shipyards and mills buzzed with innovation. However, underneath the hustle and bustle was a different world, as an incredibly diverse criminal class worked for their own profit - with a total disregard for the law. The highways and by...

The criminal cases vividly described by Paul Harrison in this gripping book take the reader on a journey into the dark secret side of Glasgow's long history. The city has been the setting for a series of horrific, bloody, sometimes bizarre incidents over the centuries. From crimes of brutal premeditation to those born of rage or despair, the whole range of human weakness and wickedness is represented here. There are tales of secret passion and betrayal, robbery, murder, gangland violence, ...

The true story of Robert Trimbole, Mr Asia and the disappearance of Donald Mackay.Robert Trimbole: race-fixer, drug boss, Mafia powerbroker, murder contractor, arms dealer. In the 1970s Trimbole and the Calabrian Mafia ruled Australia's marijuana trade from their castles in Griffith, NSW – dream homes built with drug money. The business expanded to heroin when Trimbole joined Terry Clark and the notorious Mr Asia syndicate, and then to murder when anti-drugs campai...

'. . . a well-written piece of investigative journalism that asks some deeply troubling questions . . .' - NY Journal of Books 'Cadwallader has written a brave, powerful and forensically detailed book about a shameful and denied aspect of our conflict's history.' - The Irish Times. 'Anne Cadwallader's remarkable book focusses on collusion in the British security forces (the RUC, the British Army, and the UDR) in the mid-Ulster "Murder Triangle". Over 120 people were killed by a loyalist ga...

The Great Train Robbery of 1963 is one of the most infamous crimes in British history. The bulk of the money stolen (equivalent to over £40 million today) has never been recovered, and there has not been a single year since 1963 when one aspect of the crime or its participants has not been featured in the media. Despite the wealth and extent of this coverage, a host of questions have remained unanswered: Who was behind the robbery? Was it an inside job? And who got away wi...

In the twenty-first century, Glasgow is still a city living down a fearsome reputation for crime. And for some citizens of the Dear Green Place, brawling is in the blood and gang warfare is a way of life. The stinking deprivation of the Gorbals and the East End, deprivation that helped spawn pre-war gangs like the Billy Boys, the Norman Conks and the Redskins, is largely gone, but in each era new gangs have risen to take their place. Battles over turf and control of the drugs trade still r...

For more than a hundred years, Glasgow has been right up there in the major league of big-city crime. From Madelaine Smith and Oscar Slater, by way of the Bridgeton Billy Boys and the Norman Conks, through to modern villains like Paul Ferris and Tam McGraw, Glasgow's streets have spawned a succession of fascinating tales of true crime. Even in the twenty-first century, as the new Glasgow polishes a growing reputation for sophistication and culture, blood still gets spilled on the streets a...