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Life & Crimes: True Stories from Australia’s Underbelly

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'. . . one of the most compelling storytellers in Australian journalism' Australian Media Hall of Fame


Journalist and podcaster Andrew Rule brings us eighteen Australian crime stories that have fuelled fears, fired outrage and broken hearts and dreams. Among them are events so infamous that a word or phrase propels us back to a time and place. The disappearance of the Beaumont children from an Adelaide beach in the sixties lingers in the nation's collective memory. The Easey Street murders symbolise a chilling assault on the freedom of young women in the seventies. The execution-style shooting of Gary Abdallah by a detective in the eighties heightened suspicions about the twinned worlds of cops and criminals. The author has covered crime for decades with a novelist's eye and forensic attention to truth, and lived to tell the tales. These are the best of them.

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Published June 25, 2024

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About the author

Andrew Rule

38 books12 followers

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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
726 reviews5 followers
November 1, 2024
It is what it claims to be, short stories about true crimes in Australia. Some are familiar (Beaumont) others are not. Some perpetrators are punished, others have disappeared into time (unfortunately). Some crimes I hadn't heard of, some of the stories a little convoluted (by their nature, or that Rule had more involvement with than the others? I'm unsure).

It won't change the world. Oh and interesting that the Easey Street murders have subsequently been solved (there is someone who has been extradited to Australia) and is not any of the potential subjects Rule suggests. We can all get it wrong, even the 'experts'. Truth can be stranger than fiction.
927 reviews1 follower
June 2, 2025
A snapshot of the seedier side of life and crime
92 reviews1 follower
November 10, 2025
Australia sure does have some entertaining criminals
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews

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