THE FATAL FRIENDSHIP. Ned Kelly, Aaron Sherritt & Joe Byrne.

by Ian Jones

On the night of 26 June 1880, outlaw Joe Byrne, lieutenant of the Kelly Gang, shot his lifelong mate, Aaron Sherritt. A fitting end for the story's Judas and one that immediately guaranteed his place as the classic traitor of Australian history and folklore. The symmetry of the Byrne/Sherritt/Kelly story was so perfect that the verdict on Aaron Sherritt remained unchallenged. It was 112 years before Ian Jones, Australia's highly respected Kelly historian and author of the definitive biography, Ned A Short Life, finished weaving together the enthralling and complex story that lay behind the murder of Aaron a story of betrayal and deception in which Sherritt became the victim - and the unwitting destroyer of the Kelly Gang.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Ian Jones was an Australian Director and writer, best known for his written works on the renowned bushranger Ned Kelly, and his directorial works with Crawford Productions that explored Australia's colonial past.

Reviews

[Terri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ian Jones is the best at this kind of non fiction. The way he crafts creative fiction writing into the craft of non fiction narrating. he completely sucked me into this world and broke my itty-bitty heart. I read the book to get a better feel for who Joe Byrne and Aaron Sherritt were away from the Ned Kelly vortex. And I also wanted to see what it was that Aaron did that made his best mate and childhood friend kill him. I knew Aaron was supposed to betray Joe, and he did, but by the reports of the day, Aaron didn't really. He helped the police so he could get paid and he got a promise (a promise the officials never planned to uphold) to not hang Joe. But when he helped them, he was always leading them the wrong way, or taking them to places where they wouldn't see Joe pass by. So he was working with the police, but he was trying to avert Joe's capture by leading them astray. Joe clearly never knew the latter and shot his best mate for nothing. Heartbreaker! If I wasn't so tough I would have cried in the end. :-) What a book! What a story. Fair dinkum, you couldn't make this stuff up.

[Neal Carney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading for anyone interested in the Ned Kelly story.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published under the less eye-catching and more illuminating title The Friendship That Destroyed Ned Kelly, Ian Jones's The Fatal Friendship explores the lives of Joe Byrne, Kelly's right hand man, and Aaron Sherritt, the man who was seen to betray the Kelly Gang, and their friendship. Close, childhood friends all that changed during the "Trouble" of the Kelly Outbreak and the breakdown of their bond had catastrophic consequences for all parties involved.

Ian Jones is considered to be the number one expert on all things Kelly and it's evident just from flicking through the photographs included that Jones has done a lot of independent research on his topic. It's also clear when reading this book that Jones has an incredibly enjoyable writing style, evocative, authoritative and immensely readable.

The Fatal Friendship is, in short, all of those things. It breathes new life and new information into the Kelly Gang narrative, focusing on figures besides Ned. Written by the expert in the field, this is a reliable source, or at least as reliable as you're going to get. My one complaint is that Jones sometimes indulges in speculation, suggesting that perhaps Byrne felt this or Sherritt probably thought this. But if you're going to read speculation, you could do worse than to read Jones's speculation.