The gripping and revealing inside story of Australia's most notorious armed robbers.In the Australia of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, armed robbers were the top of the criminal food chain. Their dash and violence were celebrated, and men like Russell 'Mad Dog' Cox and Ray Denning were household names long before Underbelly established Melbourne's gangland thugs as celebrities.Cox and Denning were once Australian Public Enemies Number One and Two. Both were handso...

Sex + Money: growing up in the men's magazines is the story of Mark Dapin's rise from the gutter (where he found himself one sad morning with no money and no shoes) to editor-in-chief of Ralph magazine. Along the way, he has his ribs broken by world welterweight boxing champion Kostya Tszyu and his heart broken by supermodel Claudia Schiffer. He visits a lap-dancing club with confessed killer Chopper Read, and hangs out with SAS troopers and Foreign Legionnaires. But the ...

**2019 Nib Military History Prize Finalist **'This book shouldbe read by anyone interested in the way myths become accepted as history.' - Peter Edwards, author of Australia and the Vietnam WarWhy everything you thinkyou know about Australia's Vietnam War is wrong.When journalist and historianMark Dapin first interviewed Vietnam veterans and wrote about the war, heswallowed (and regurgitated) every popular ...

"This book is about the people I met as I crisscrossed Australia by train and plane and L-plated car: the undefeated dreamers and wild-hearted romantics, the obsessed hobbyists and beautiful failures. It is about heroes and legends, illusions, delusions and hope, and one or two men with shit for brains who ought to be locked up."As anyone who's ever read Mark Dapin's column and features in Good Weekend knows, he's an immensely funny, acute and vivid observer of Australian ...

A landmark history of Australian Jews in the military, from the First Fleet to the recent war in Afghanistan.Over 7000 Jews have fought in Australia's military conflicts, including more than 330 who gave their lives. While Sir John Monash is the best known, in Jewish Anzacs acclaimed writer and historian Mark Dapin reveals the personal, often extraordinary, stories of many other Jewish servicemen and women: from air aces to POWs, from nurses to generals, from generation to generati...

Others have written the myth, but the Anzacs themselves wrote their stories.Around the country, bronze soldiers in slouch hats stand silently at attention. It is the Anzacs' remarkable writing that reveals the lives behind the national legend. From the Trenches is a collection of gripping, awe-inspiring and sometimes terrifying accounts of life at the front, recorded by those who lived through the fighting.Drawn from diaries, memoirs and letters, a...

From Simpson’s donkey and the Emu War to Vietnam and Ben Roberts-Smith, Australian military history is full of events that didn’t happen the way most people think they did. In his inimitable style, award-winning author Mark Dapin sets the record straight.Australia has many stories and statues ‘lest we forget’ our military past. But from Simpson’s donkey to Ben Roberts-Smith, our history is full of events that didn’t happen the way most people think they did.

For more than thirty years, Mark Dapin has been hanging out with crooks, and both types of cop. In this gripping, often funny and always surprising book, he sorts the tall stories from the truth about true crime, showing us what some of Australia’s most famous felons are really like.Mark Dapin was still in school when he met his first murderer – a boy called Ian. In reporting the murder Ian eventually committed, newspapers used the cliché that it ‘shocked even thos...

Millions have been entertained by the viral video of a man being arrested after a ‘succulent Chinese meal’. But when Mark Dapin investigated, it emerged that this man's story went to the heart of the Australian underworld. A true crime cult classic in the making.Whether you know it as the ‘succulent Chinese meal’ video, or ‘democracy manifest’, chances are you have seen the video of baritone larrikin Jack Karlson getting arrested outside a Brisbane Chinese restaura...

Imagine the pain, confusion and emotional rollercoaster that families experience when a loved one goes missing. What would you do? How would your family cope? This is a heart-wrenching collection of true stories told through the eyes of family members who have experienced the trauma of a missing loved one. It follows their journeys from the desperate searches in the first days, through the Police investigations and, in many cases, the heartbreak as the years roll by without any news. These...

The Battle for Milne Bay - Japan's first defeat on land in the Second World War - was a defining moment in the evolution of the indomitable Australian fighting spirit. For the men of the AIF, the militia and the RAAF, it was the turning point in the Pacific, and their finest - though now largely forgotten - hour. Forgotten, until now.In August 1942, Japan's forces were unstoppable. Having conquered vast swathes of south-east Asia - Malaya, Singapore, the Dutch East...

NOW A BLOCKBUSTER MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY CLINT EASTWOOD—NOMINATED FOR SIX ACADEMY AWARDS, INCLUDING BEST PICTUREFrom 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy Seal Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. His fellow American warriors, whom he protected with deadly precision from rooftops and stealth positions during the Iraq War, called him “The Legend”; meanwhile, the enemy feared him so much they named him al-Shaitan (“the devil”) and placed ...