Nonfiction - General > true crime

Another highly controversial book from Howling At The Moon, this time blowing open the law and order debate. Badlands is the devasting new expose from a justice system insider that reveals for the first time why New Zealand's crime rate is one of the highest in the world.

The brutal, premeditated murder of Honorah Parker in 1954 in a lonely park by her 16-year-old daughter Pauline and Pauline's 15-year-old friend Juliet Hulme made shock headlines around the world. International media flocked to New Zealand to follow the trial. Still today, the murder remains one of the most interesting criminal cases of all time, and a source of intense public fascination throughout the world - especially since one of the murderers was revealed to be the murder-mystery writer Anne Perry, whose books sell in the mill... read more

A fascinating novel based on the life of the infamous baby farmer Minnie Dean, the only woman in New Zealand history ever to be hanged.
Accused of infanticide and awaiting trial and then sentence, Minnie confides in the Reverend Lindsay. Alternating between these two contrasting personalities, the novel tells Minnie's version of events. From her oppressive upbringing in Victorian Scotland to adulthood in Southland, Minnie battles her own nature and the hardships of colonial life and social hypocrisy. Once Minnie is tr... read more

One Sunday morning in 1993 a 16-year-old girl named Eliza Claps goes missing from a church in the centre of Potenza, Italy. Shortly before her disappearance, Elisa had met Danilo Restivo, a strange local boy with a fetish for cutting women's hair on the back of buses. Elisa's family is convinced that Resitvo is responsible for their daughter's disappearance, but he is protected by local big-wigs: by his Sicilian father, by a doctor with links to organised crime, by a priest who had vices of his own. Years went by and Elisa's family... read more

For over 40 years the murder of Harvey and Jeanette Crewe has been the great unsolved mystery of NZ criminal history. Local farmer Arthur Allan Thomas was twice convicted of their murders but was later given a Royal Pardon. In this comprehensive anatomy of the investigation Veteran journalist and broadcaster Keith Hunter provides answers to all the unresolved issues.

This true story is based on Carey's first-hand experience in Thailand and occurrences relayed to her by others she met while travelling over the years. The characters in this book are composites of Carey and other girls, some of whom were never seen again. For too long Carey pushed aside this experience in Thailand as an unpleasant incident she had created and deserved, a freak twist of fate that had spared her, but was not so benevolent to others. Carey does not want to squander her second chance, or waste the opportunity of enjoy... read more

Andrew Fraser's bestselling and controversial true-crime memoirs are now being adapted into an exciting new television series called Killing Time. After being convicted and disbarred, Fraser became the confidant of one of Australia's most notorious serial killers, Peter Dupas. What he learned made him the Homicide Squad's secret weapon. Angry at his treatment in jail and at his excessive sentence, the long-time defence lawyer enjoyed the irony of his situation: the authorities who destroyed his career now needed his cooperation. Th... read more

Andrew Fraser's bestselling and controversial true-crime memoirs are now being adapted into an exciting new television series called Killing Time. From 1975 to 2001, Andrew Fraser was a leading criminal solicitor with a successful national practice. And then it all went horribly wrong. In 1999 he was charged with being knowingly concerned with the importation of a commercial quantity of cocaine. Fraser pleaded guilty to a charge of possessing, trafficking a small quantity and to using cocaine over a period of time. He was sentenced... read more

Sophie Elliott had everything to live for - good looks, intelligence, friends, a loving family, a degree under her belt and a new job at the Treasury in Wellington. And then, the day before she left Dunedin to take up that job, she was brutally stabbed to death in her own home by her former boyfriend, Clayton Weatherston. He was much older and one of her lecturers at the university. When the public came to take his measure at his high-profile trial in 2010, his narcissitic, manipulative personality stunned the nation. Sophi... read more

Ocean's Eleven meets A Beautiful Mind...Sex on The Moon is the amazing true story of the 25-year-old genius who pulled off one of the most unique and significant heists in US history. Thad Roberts, a fellow in a prestigious NASA programme had an idea - a romantic, albeit crazy, idea. He wanted to give his girlfriend the moon. Literally. Thad convinced his girlfriend and another female accomplice, both NASA interns, to break into an impenetrable laboratory at NASA's headquarters - past security checkpoints, and electronically... read more

Three of the world's greatest detectives - a renowned former FBI agent, a forensic sculptor and an eccentric profiler known as 'the living Sherlock Holmes' - were distraught at the growing tide of unsolved murders. And so William Fleisher, Frank Bender and Richard Walter pledged themselves to a quest for justice ...They invited the finest collection of forensic minds ever assembled, drawn from five continents, to bring the coldest killers in the world to account. Named after the first detective - Eugene Francois Vidocq - the Vidocq... read more

Shortly after 12.30 p.m. on November 2, 2007, police officers entered the home of 21-year-old British student Meredith Kercher in the picturesque Italian town of Perugia. Inside, Kercher's half-naked body lay on the floor under a beige quilt. She had been stabbed three times in the neck. This is the unrivalled account of a murder investigation full of twists and turns, and the fascinating trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito. As the Italy correspondent for the Sunday Times for the past eleven years, John Follain is ideally p... read more

In January 2010 a law-abiding, church-going father of two from Melbourne's leafy eastern suburbs didn't come home after a business trip and his burnt remains were found in a northern suburb - the wrong side of town - a week later. A police investigation uncovered the shocking truth: Herman Rockefeller met with an alcoholic single mum and her older boyfriend for sex and the liaison had gone horribly wrong. Was the respectable, successful businessman (worth $400 million) leading a double life as a swinger? Why didn't he just pay for ... read more

Drugs, sex and a pack of unscrupulous men circling, circling - it was always going to get ugly but no-one foresaw the tragic death of a young woman.

On 24 September, 2002, Queensland mother Dianne Brimble was found dead on the floor of a cabin on the cruise ship Pacific Sky, less than 24 hours into what was to be the holiday of a lifetime.

The cabin belonged to four men from Adelaide who were part of a group of eight colourful characters, whom the media would later describe as the most hated men in Austra... read more

Why do women love 'bad boys'? For some it is true love. For others it's the excitement, wealth, glamour and moving with a fast crowd. Some become partners in crimes, hiding guns and cash and providing alibis. Others maintain the innocence of their notorious spouses.

What was it like for Mary-Ann Hodge to be married to Mark 'Chopper' Read? How was Joe Korp's former girlfriend Tania Herman persuaded to try to kill his wife Maria? And why did hairdresser Sylvia Bruno fall for Melbourne gangland killer Nikolai 'The Bulgari... read more

A memoir that was recently discovered and appears to have been written in the 1920s by someone who asserts that he was Jack the Ripper. It introduces a new suspect for the infamous murders in Whitechapel in 1888. It also offers a credible motive for James becoming the murderer Jack and also a reason for the end of the murders.

Part of a series of books which examines real-life stories that have made newspaper headlines around the world, this looks at the world's worst atrocities. Other titles available include "The World's Greatest Blunders" and "The World's Greatest Cults".