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On Murder: True Crime Writing in Australia
On Murder: True Crime Writing in Australia
Australia is not short on stories of murder and mysterious deaths --all chilling, many unresolved, and most still screaming with unanswered What impels a man to open fire on a cafe full of tourists? How could a young girl stab her school friend 47 times in the neck, spraying the ceiling and walls with blood? Who is responsible for the Snowtown murders? In this Australian classic, crime writer Kerry Greenwood presents an outstanding collection of the finest crime writing,trenchant, hard-hitting and defined by a keen intelligence and sensitivity.
- GenresTrue CrimeNonfiction
280 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2000
About the author
Kerry Greenwood
87 books2,590 followersKerry Isabelle Greenwood was an Australian author and lawyer. She wrote many plays and books, most notably a string of historical detective novels centered on the character of Phryne Fisher, which was adapted as the popular television series "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries." She wrote mysteries, science-fiction, historical fiction, children's stories, and plays. Greenwood earned the Australian women's crime fiction Davitt Award in 2002 for her young adult novel The Three-Pronged Dagger.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 5, 2024
‘Everyone is interested in murder. It is the ultimate sin, the one thing for which the law has no redress until someone unravels the genetics of resurrection. Much of the writing on murder concentrates on the gory details and the factual blow-by-blow recounting of actions and legal proceedings.
We wanted to do something different. We wanted intelligent considered, deep, personal writing which told the reader something unusual about the murderer or the victim or the society in which they both moved.’
Eighteen different cases are included in this book. The contributions are bookended by two cases which occurred in 1996: the mass murder at Port Arthur in April and the murder of Dr Peter Rowland at Gundaroo in June. Each of the cases included is horrifying. We will never know what was in the mind of the perpetrator at Port Arthur, we are unlikely to know who the murderer was in some cases, and, in Helen Garner’s words:
‘I don’t see how it is possible to contemplate Danial Valerio’s story without acknowledging the existence of evil; of something savage that persists in people despite all our enlightenment and our social engineering and our safety nets, something only philosophy, religion or art can handle: the worm in the heart of the rose.’
‘The existence of evil’ is the only explanation that makes sense to me in many of these cases. The inclusion of the disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain is different: Lindy Chamberlian was persecuted/prosecuted because some authorities could not accept that a dingo could have removed baby Azaria from the family’s tent.
I agree with Ms Greenwood:
‘If there is an underlying motif to this book, it is largely that the legal system fails the victims.’
In every case, surviving family and friends live with both the tragedy of loss and the reduction of that loss to dry, legal words in a courtroom. And even that is only when a perpetrator is captured and tried.
A difficult, thought-provoking read.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
We wanted to do something different. We wanted intelligent considered, deep, personal writing which told the reader something unusual about the murderer or the victim or the society in which they both moved.’
Eighteen different cases are included in this book. The contributions are bookended by two cases which occurred in 1996: the mass murder at Port Arthur in April and the murder of Dr Peter Rowland at Gundaroo in June. Each of the cases included is horrifying. We will never know what was in the mind of the perpetrator at Port Arthur, we are unlikely to know who the murderer was in some cases, and, in Helen Garner’s words:
‘I don’t see how it is possible to contemplate Danial Valerio’s story without acknowledging the existence of evil; of something savage that persists in people despite all our enlightenment and our social engineering and our safety nets, something only philosophy, religion or art can handle: the worm in the heart of the rose.’
‘The existence of evil’ is the only explanation that makes sense to me in many of these cases. The inclusion of the disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain is different: Lindy Chamberlian was persecuted/prosecuted because some authorities could not accept that a dingo could have removed baby Azaria from the family’s tent.
I agree with Ms Greenwood:
‘If there is an underlying motif to this book, it is largely that the legal system fails the victims.’
In every case, surviving family and friends live with both the tragedy of loss and the reduction of that loss to dry, legal words in a courtroom. And even that is only when a perpetrator is captured and tried.
A difficult, thought-provoking read.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
January 31, 2014
The real reporting on crime in Australia
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews