SYDNEY, 1959. Billy Glasheen is flogging mailorder schemes out of a seedy back room in Chinatown. Want to play guitar in 14 days? Learn Italian in your spare time? Win big with an infallible betting system? Master the love secrets of the ancients? Bill’s your man.But there are unsettled accounts in Billy’s past, and they’re coming due. As shadowy factions line up around him, he can’t be sure if he’s the target or caught in someone else’s crossfire. Or is he imagining the whole thin...

Meet Billy Glasheen, a fresh voice in crime fiction. It’s Sydney, the 1950s, and Billy’s trying to make a living, any way he can. Luckily, he’s a likeable guy, with a gift for masterminding elaborate scenarios-whether it’s a gambling scam, transporting a fortune in stolen jewels, or keeping the wheels greased during a hair-raising tour by Little Richard and his rock n’ roll entourage.But trouble follows close behind-because Billy’s schemes always seem to interfere with the plans o...

In a campaign part sponsored by First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915 remains one of the most resounding Allied defeats of the First World War, with both the Allied and Ottoman armies suffering in excess of 200,000 casualties.Despite this, many believed it would be a sure-fire success due to the preceding naval campaign, but increased losses at sea prompted the Allies to send in ground troops. Comprising a large ANZAC contin...

** Shortlisted, The Age Book of the Year Award 2023, Non-fiction **** Shortlisted, The Danger Awards 2023, Non-fiction **Nothing in the post-war decades reveals the underbelly of Australian life the way police records do.Small time heists. Failed robberies. Runs of bad luck. Payback. Love gone wrong. Drink, drugs and late-night assignations. Cops doing their job well. And b...

It was 2am on the 16th June 1915 and dawn was slowly breaking over Bellewaarde. It was exceptionally quiet, the troops of 3rd Division were situated on the western edge of Railway Wood and shrouded in a thick mist which reduced visibility and gave the illusion of safety. Across the few yards of no man's land, the German troops of Reserve Infantry Regiments (RIR) 248 and 246, and Unter-Elsssisches Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 132 were also blanketed in the thick damp mist. It swirled round their...

It was a war that shaped the modern world, fought on five continents, claiming the lives of ten million people. Two great nations met each other on the field of battle for the first time. But were they so very different? For the first time, and drawing widely on archive material in the form of original letters and diaries, Peter Doyle and Robin Schäfer bring together the two sides, 'Fritz' and 'Tommy', to examine cultural and military nuances that have until now been left ...

Objects allow us to reach out and touch the past and they play a living role in history today. Through them we can understand the experience of men and women during the First World War. They bear witness to the stories of men whose only morning comfort in the trenches was the rum ration, children who grew up with only one photograph of the father that they would never get to know, women who would sacrifice their girlhood in hospitals yards from the frontline, pinning a bro...

How much can you really find out about the Leaders and Commanders of the First World War in five minutes? This handy little history book will surpass all your expectations and leave you well versed on all you wish to know, and maybe even a little bit more… Who were the leaders? Who commanded the British Army on the Somme? Which general committed suicide in shame? Who stopped the German offensive at Verdun? Who invented stormtroopers? Jam-packed with facts and first-hand ac...

The First World War largely directed the course of the twentieth century. Fought on three continents, the war saw 14 million killed and 34 million wounded. Its impact shaped the world we live in today, and the language of the trenches continues to live in the modern consciousness. One of the enduring myths of the First World War is that the experience of the trenches was not talked about. Yet dozens of words entered or became familiar in the English language as a direct re...

Frank and Percy Talley of the 1st City of London Yeomanry (Rough Riders) were destined to leave England to take part in the last, and most costly, single-day battle of the Gallipoli Campaign, on 21 August 1915. In never-before published letters, the Talley brothers describe their training in England and their move to the East Coast to man the trenches there during the invasion scare of 1914 and the Zeppelin attack at Great Yarmouth. Their letters provide a rare insight int...

Geology controls the outcome of battle and no more so than during the trench warfare of the Great War; this new book by expert Peter Doyle takes us through the details. An understanding of terrain has been the mark of a great commander from at least the time of Sun Tzu, and most campaigns can be interpreted and understood from this standpoint. It is the Great War, a war of trenches and dug-outs, of mines and mud, that epitomises the struggles of commander and soldier alike in the prosecuti...

Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats is the first comprehensive account of how the rise of postwar youth culture was depicted in mass-market pulp fiction. As the young created new styles in music, fashion, and culture, pulp fiction shadowed their every move, hyping and exploiting their behaviour, dress, and language for mass consumption and cheap thrills. From the juvenile delinquent gangs of the early 1950s through the beats and hippies, on to bikers, skinheads, and punks, ...