Book picks similar to
Dead by Friday by Derek Pedley


true-crime
non-fiction
real-stories
assorted

Pretty Boy


Roy Shaw - 1999
    He has cult status and commands a respect that few, even in the violent world he moves in, can equal. To him, violence is simply an accepted part of his profession. He doesn't exaggerate it, he can't excuse it and he refuses to apologize for it. His name may mean nothing to you—he's no actor, no showman, no wannabe celebrity. He does, however, live by a merciless code, and though he may not have cloven hooves and a tail, if he goes after someone, all hell comes with him.

Stalking Claremont: Inside the Hunt for a Serial Killer


Bret Christian - 2021
    But when the cab arrived, she'd already gone.Sarah was never seen again.Four months later, on June 9, 1996, 23-year-old Jane Rimmer disappeared from the same area, her body later found in bushland south of Perth. When the body of a third young woman, 27-year-old Ciara Glennon, was found north of the city, having vanished from Claremont in August 1997, it was clear a serial killer was on the loose, and an entire city lived in fear he would strike again.A massive manhunt focused first on taxi drivers, then the outspoken local mayor and a quiet public servant. However, almost 20 years later, Australia's longest and most expensive investigation had failed to make an arrest, until forensic evidence linked the murders to two previous attacks - and an unlikely suspect.Stalking Claremont, by local newsman Bret Christian, is a riveting story of promising young lives cut short, a city in panic, an investigation fraught by oversights and red herrings, and a surprising twist that absolutely no one saw coming.

Broken Lives


Estelle Blackburn - 2009
    Bashings and a hate-filled childhood followed for the boy with the crooked mouth, launching a personality unique among serial killers. He stalked the city of Perth for months, shooting strangers in the dead of night and using a sickening variety of weapons to steal the lives of strangers. Unknown to the terror-stricken citizens of this trusting, emerging metropolis, the young father of seven children who pulled the trigger had for years been doing other sinister night work. In a remarkable twist of fate, the killer’s life tangled with that of 19-year-old John Button, whose 17-year-old girlfriend was killed. Both men confessed to that crime. This riveting investigation into the life and untold crimes of the last man to hang in Western Australia reveals new evidence to indicate that at least one innocent man, John Button, went to jail for one of Cooke’s murders. Estelle’s efforts to clear John Buttons name, have led to the West Australian Court of Criminal Appeal re-opening the case against John Button after nearly 35 years. The new edition will include a chapter covering the case and the final decision.

Killer Child: Mary Bell: A Tragic True Story


Sylvia Perrini - 2015
    Mary was found guilty of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility and was sentenced to 'detention' for life. What would induce a young child to murder two other young children? In this short book, Sylvia Perrini, looks at Mary’s tragic life, her years in prison and life since prison. This short book follows in the tradition of great true crime writers such as Ann Rule, M. William Phelps and R J Parker.

The Pick-up (The Drop-off, #2)


Fiona Harris - 2021
    Newly divorced Sam is navigating the ‘delights’ of online dating. And Lizzie is flat out juggling four kids and an absent husband.As if that wasn’t enough, this year the trio have decided to embrace their inner parent helper and volunteer to go on the annual school camp.If they think their personal lives are chaotic, this camp’s going to teach them what chaos really means …The hilarious new novel from the popular authors of The Drop-off. Perfect for fans of Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty.

Milat: Inside Australia's Biggest Manhunt - A Detective's Story


Clive Small - 2014
    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 that pointed to one man.This is the story of how Ivan Milat was caught. Clive Small takes us inside the operation he led as his team painstakingly pieced together the evidence that put Milat behind bars. But questions remain. Did he act alone? Were there other victims? How much did his family know? And what of his great-nephew, who brutally killed a young man in 2010?Chilling, forensic, compassionate - this is the definitive story that could only be told by someone at the centre of the police operation. It is also a powerful argument for the investigation of more than a hundred unsolved murders.

The Women’s Doc


Caroline de Costa - 2021
    She and her husband packed their bags and their children, and headed for Dublin.When Caroline first started in medicine, being an unmarried mother was frowned on, cane toads were used for pregnancy tests, and giving birth was much riskier than it is today. Her funny and poignant stories of bringing babies into the world show that, while much has changed, women still work hard and it remains a bloody business. A birth plan is no guarantee of a normal birth (whatever that is). Men have always wanted to control women's bodies, and Caroline has been instrumental in giving Australian women of all backgrounds the opportunity to resist, and to choose when and how they have babies. Her behind-the-scenes stories reveal it's often the little things that win a campaign. 'An enthralling and at times eye-popping ride through her brilliant career as an obstetrician and fierce advocate for women's reproductive freedom.' - Anne Summers'Caroline de Costa has lived an exciting and unusual life, is a brilliant doctor, a fierce and trailblazing feminist and now reveals herself as a gripping and evocative writer!' - Jane Caro

DOUBT: The Madeleine McCann Mystery (Gone Girl Book 1)


Nick van der Leek - 2017
    We also know the original lead investigator, Goncalo Amaral’s, counter-narrative, now a legally defensible matter of public record. The questions that arise from these opposing narratives are dead simple: Which narrative is more credible? Which narrator is more credible? What was the motive behind all the publicity? Neither Madeleine nor her abductor ultimately benefited from the ongoing media barrage, so who did? True crime maestro, Nick van der Leek, plumbs quagmires of confusion and a thicket of thorny inconsistencies to probe what lies beneath: the psychologies. What is the significance of "doctors" as suspects? Did it matter or mean anything that the McCanns and their cabal of friends in the Algarve were mostly doctors? Peeling away the gossamer threads, over the course of just four days [April 29th – May 2nd], van der Leek intuits that very little was routine: not the weather, not where meals were eaten, not where or when they slept and not what they did as a family. But what were their routines when it came to other, murkier things, like sleeping patterns, cell phones and sedatives? Drawing intangibles out of the darkness, van der Leek sews the vexing loose ends from several conflicting stories into a definite - if not definitive - end-result.

Everything you didn't know about the Casey Anthony Trial


S.K. Patton - 2018
    Why did she get acquitted? Why did the jurors see George as a suspect? Why did they think she was a good mother? And how on God's green earth did they miss the suffocation search? There are surprisingly good answers for all of these questions. I argue in this book that not only did the prosecution hide evidence from the jury, but that the evidence points to Casey being factually innocent as well. Regardless of whether you agree with my viewpoint, I guarantee you'll learn something you didn't know before about this infamous case.

Fake: A Startling True Story of Love in a World of Liars, Cheats, Narcissists, Fantasists and Phonies


Stephanie Wood - 2019
    When Stephanie Wood meets a sweet man who owns a farm and property, she embarks on an exhilarating romance with him. He seems compassionate, truthful and loving. He talks about the future with her. She falls in love. She also becomes increasingly beset by anxiety at the lavish three-act plays he offers her in the form of excuses for frequent cancellations and no-shows. She begins to wonder, who is this man?When she ends the relationship Stephanie switches back on her journalistic nous and uncovers a story of mind-boggling duplicity and manipulation. She also finds she is not alone; that the world is full of smart, sassy women who have suffered at the hands of liars, cheats, narcissists, fantasists and phonies, men who are enormously skilled at deception.In this brilliantly acute and broad-ranging book, Wood, an award-winning writer and journalist, has written a riveting, important account of contemporary love, and the resilience of those who have witnessed its darkest sides.

The Upside of Hunger: A True Tale


Roxi Harms - 2018
    the magnificently told story of a man who triumphed over the limitations of history to become his greatest self." The life he was born into was too small for Adam Baumann. But getting out in the midst of a world at war was dangerous.Born in an isolated village in eastern Hungary between the great wars, Adam yearned for more. More excitement, more freedom, more knowledge of the world... and often more food. Locked up for theft at age nine, Adam's life took one tumultuous turn after another. From a twelve-year-old stable hand on a nobleman's estate, to a fifteen-year-old shivering in a foxhole on the Eastern Front, Adam's hunger for a bigger life led him into spine tingling adventures, mind-numbing horror, heart-breaking tears, and terrifying brushes with death. Awakening in a makeshift hospital with a shattered left leg, Adam was catapulted into a series of captures and narrow escapes from enemy forces as Europe reeled from the final destruction and horror of WWII.Never standing still, he journeyed through war-torn landscapes to find and reunite his family, and began to build a life from the ashes, until the results of a medical examination at an American Embassy in Germany changed the course of his future forever.

Whole Notes


Eddie Ayres - 2021
    Because music consoles and restores us. Through music, whether we are listening or playing, we know ourselves more intimately, more honestly, and more clearly with every note. And with every note, music offers us a hand to the beyond.Through music, we can say what we didn't even know we felt.This book is an ode to music, and a celebration of humanity's greatest creation. It is not a call to arms, but a call to instruments.In music, Ed Ayres finds answers to the big questions life throws at us. Using personal anecdotes - including those relating to his transition from Emma to Ed - and observations from teaching and learning music, Ed finds hope in our desire to become whole, with some simple music lessons along the way.PRAISE'Whole Notes may appear to be about music, but really, it's simply about how to be kind and how to listen without judgement. Which is the best definition of love, no?' Jessie Tu, Sydney Morning Herald'A truly beguiling account' Geraldine Doogue'An almost divine presence' Rick Morton

Prime Suspect: The True Story of John Cannan, the Only Man the Police Want to Investigate for the Murder of Suzy Lamplugh


Christopher Berry-Dee - 1992
    After Cannan's conviction, the Lamplugh case was closed. Yet to this day, Cannan denies his involvement in the Lamplugh case and protests his innocence in the murder of Shirley Banks—his appeal has been dismissed. Drawing on the latest psychological profiling knowledge developed in America by the FBI and, most importantly, an intense three-year correspondence with Cannan, this book provides a chillingly personal and comprehensive portrait of a complex and intelligent man.

Mrs Kelly: The Astonishing Life of Ned Kelly's Mother


Grantlee Kieza - 2017
    When she arrived in Melbourne in 1841 aged nine, British convict ships were still dumping their unhappy cargo in what was then known as the colony of New South Wales. When she died at the age of 91 in 1923, having outlived seven of her 12 children, motor cars plied the highway near her bush home north of Melbourne, and Australia was a modern sovereign nation.The wife of a convict, Ellen, like so many Australian pioneering women, led a life of great hardship. She was a mother of seven when her husband died after months in a police lock-up, lived through famine and Australian drought, saw her babies die, listened through the prison wall while her eldest son was hanged and saw the charred remains of another of her children who'd died in a shoot-out with police. One son became Australia's most infamous (and ultimately popular) outlaw. Another became a highly decorated policeman, an honorary member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and a worldwide star on the rodeo circuit.By bestselling biographer Grantlee Kieza, MRS KELLY is the story of one of Australia's most notorious women, but it is also the story of so many of Australia's pioneering women, who knew only too well the hardships of pioneering life. More than that, it's the story of the making of Australia, from struggling colony and backwater to modern nation.

Cold Cases Solved Vol. 2: More True Stories of Murders That Took Years or Decades to Solve


Mike Riley - 2015
    2:  This follow-up book to Cold Cases Solved continues where the first book left off detailing more true stories of criminal cases that went cold and were eventually solved, sometimes many years later. Some of the cases include: Martha Moxley – the case with a Kennedy connection, Jeanine Nicarico – the case that took over 20 years to solve, Sherri Rasmussen – fresh eyes caught the right clue, The 16th Baptist Church Bombing – solved after 14 years, Leslie Long – the young mother kidnapped, raped and murdered, The Outlaw Clubhouse Murders – a motorcycle gang wiped out, and many others. The closure attained by solving these cases must at least provide a modicum of relief for the friends and family of the victims. The authorities involved in the investigations and in bringing the perpetrators to justice must also feel a sense of accomplishment when they are able to successfully close a long-standing case.Grab your copy TODAY and read about more Cold Cases Solved!