The Wall in the Head is a collection of nine short stories that capture people at moments of intense pressure in their lives-pressures that force them to re-examine who they are and what they believe to be true.Writing fiction, in "Under the Moving Car," Michael Carman tells of a single mother who doesn't hesitate to crawl under a moving car to rescue a little boy. In "The Employee," a "company man" panics at his desk under corporate surveillance. In "In Italy," a strange ...

Historic True CrimeThe long forgotten true story of two convict "assigned" servant girls, Sarah 18 y/o & Mary 20 y/o, tried in colonial Australia for the murder of their “master”. All the people are real. All court testimonies are real. The blatant unfairness of the trial was also very true. The deceased, Captain Waldron, was a retired army Captain, then gentleman farmer and magistrate. The police investigator, Capt. Allman, was Capt. Waldron's friend, also an ex-army officer from t...

'They have left here today!' he calls to the others. When King puts his hand down above the ashes of the fire, it is to find it still hot. There is even a tiny flame flickering from the end of one log. They must have left just hours ago.MELBOURNE, 20 AUGUST 1860. In an ambitious quest to be the first Europeans to cross the harsh Australian continent, the Victorian Exploring Expedition sets off, farewelled by 15,000 cheering well-wishers. Led by Robert O'Hara Burke,...

The mutiny on HMS Bounty, in the South Pacific on 28 April 1789, is one of history's truly great stories - a tale of human drama, intrigue and adventure of the highest order - and in the hands of Peter FitzSimons it comes to life as never before.Commissioned by the Royal Navy to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti and take them to the West Indies, the Bounty's crew found themselves in a tropical paradise. Five months later, they did not want to leave. Under the ...

The name Captain James Cook is one of the most recognisable in Australian history - an almost mythic figure who is often discussed, celebrated, reviled and debated.But who was the real James Cook?This Yorkshire farm boy would go on to become the foremost mariner, scientist, navigator and cartographer of his era, and to personally map a third of the globe. His great voyages of discovery were incredible feats of seamanship and naviga...

In 1858, 14-year-old Narcisse Pelletier sailed from Marseilles in the French trader Saint-Paul. With a cargo of Bordeaux wine, they stopped in Bombay, then Hong Kong, and from there they set sail with more than 300 Chinese prospectors bound for the goldfields of Ballarat and Bendigo. Around the eastern tip of New Guinea, however, the ship became engulfed in fog, struck reefs and ran aground.Scrambling aboard a longboat, the survivors undertook a perilous voyage, crossing a...

Christopher Wilder was about as bad as they get.A predator and serial killer, he first came to the attention of police in Sydney, when as a teenager in 1963 he was charged with rape. A good behaviour bond was not a deterrent and over the years his crimes escalated.After moving to the USA in his early twenties, Wilder continued to perfect his vile and deadly trade. He was a chameleon with a modus operandi refined over the decades, luring young teenage girls with the promise ...

Jock Wallace was pumped. It was the start of Operation Anaconda, the US-led military offensive to flush out al Qaeda and the Taliban from their last stronghold in the Shahi Kot Valley in Afghanistan. If intelligence reports were correct, there were between 100 and 250 enemy fighters holed up in the extensive cave systems in the mountain ridges around the beautiful valley. But reports can be wrong. Minutes after the combat-ready troops stormed down the back ramps of the Chinook helicopters,...

The Battle of Le Hamel on 4 July 1918 was an Allied triumph, and strategically very important in the closing stages of WWI. A largely Australian force, commanded by the brilliant Sir John Monash, fought what has been described as the first modern battle - where infantry, tanks, artillery and planes operated together as a coordinated force.Monash planned every detail meticulously, with nothing left to chance. Integrated use of tanks, planes, infantry, wireless (and even carrier pige...

Aged six, Robert Drewe moved with his family from Melbourne to Perth, the world's most isolated city - and proud of it. This sun-baked coast was innocently proud, too, of its tranquillity and friendliness. Then a man he knew murdered a boy he also knew. The murderer randomly killed eight strangers - variously shooting, strangling, stabbing, bludgeoning and hacking his victims and running them down with cars - and an innocent Perth was changed forever. In the middle-class waterside suburbs ...

The Second Battle of Krithia has existed largely in the shadows of the bigger Gallipoli story. It is, however, one of the most poignant and tragic tales of World War I. The fascinating story has been brought to light at last by bestselling military historian Mat McLachlan, author of The Cowra Breakout**.**In May 1915 during World War I, British units tried to capture the village of Krithia on the southern tip of the Gallipoli peninsula. Au...

The incredible true story of one of the most extraordinary and inspirational prison breaks in Australian history.New York, 1874. Members of the Clan-na-Gael - agitators for Irish freedom from the English yoke - hatch a daring plan to free six Irish political prisoners from the most remote prison in the British Empire, Fremantle Prison in Western Australia. Under the guise of a whale hunt, Captain Anthony sets sail on the Catalpa to rescue the men ...