The Pillow Fight

Literature & Fiction

Condon, Matthew

Women's Fiction

Vintage

After almost a century of foraging and fishing alone in the outback, Wilfred Lampe is finally marked out for greatness when he is picked to represent Australia's everyman at the Sydney Olympic opening ceremony. On the verge of becoming a legend, Wilfred is in his paddock when a freak accident occurs that could rob him of his chance. Flamboyant, operatic, enormously funny, The Trout Opera shows a mad world of history, war, romance, murder, bushfires, drugs and the resilience of nature. Through the story of a man who has experienced the reverberations of the world while never moving from his birthplace on the Snowy River, it asks, what is this relentless thing called Life?

Trout Opera

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

DOUBLEDAY

The Night Dragon

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Bolinda Audio

Biographies & Memoirs

True Crime

Millennium Book

Viking Australia

Journalist and novelist Matthew Condon has crafted the definitive account—a searing story of greed, crime, and corruption—of an era that changed Queensland society: an impact that reverberates across the country to this day. In 1949, a young Terence Murray Lewis graduated from the police academy, ready to start his career in law enforcement. Over the next four decades, he rose to the pinnacle of power as the knighted Commissioner of Police in Queensland before his spectacular downfall and imprisonment after the Fitzgerald Inquiry in the late 1980s. This book follows Lewis’s journey through the ranks, as he becomes part of the so-called Rat Pack with detectives Glenn Hallahan and Tony Murphy under the guiding influence of Commissioner Frank Bischof. The alleged suicide of prostitute and brothel madam Shirley Brifman in the early 1970s provides the turning point for a culture that reigned unchecked for several decades. It was part of a grand narrative teeming with murder, pay-offs, political machinations, drug heists, assisted suicides, police in-fighting, and a complicated system of corruption that ultimately collapsed under its own weight. Based on unprecedented interviews with Terry Lewis and access to his personal papers, this book is the missing piece in the puzzle of the story of Queensland’s endemic generational corruption.

Three Crooked Kings

History

Australia & Oceania

University of Queensland Press

Continuing on from the bestselling true crime story Three Crooked Kings, Jacks and Jokers opens in 1976. Terry Lewis, exiled in western Queensland, is soon to be controversially appointed Police Commissioner. As for the other two original Crooked Kings, Tony Murphy is set to ruthlessly take control of the workings of “The Joke,” while Glen Hallahan, retired from the force, begins to show a keen interest in the emerging illicit drug trade. Meanwhile, ex-cop and “Bagman” Jack Herbert collects the payments and efficiently takes police graft to a whole new level. The Joke heralds an era of hard drugs, illegal gambling, and prostitution, and leaves in its wake a string of unsolved murders and a trail of dirty money. With the highest levels of police and government turning a blind eye, the careers of honest police officers and the lives of innocent civilians are threatened and often lost as corruption escalates out of control. Revealing more incredible facts and previously untold stories, award-winning journalist and novelist Matthew Condon once again exposes the shocking behavior outside the law by the law. Jacks and Jokers is the gripping second installment of the rise and spectacular fall of one man, an entire state, and generations of corruption.

Jacks and Jokers

Professionals & Academics

Continuing on from the bestselling true crime stories Three Crooked Kings and Jacks and Jokers, All Fall Down follows Terry Lewis as he becomes police commissioner and the era of corruption at the highest levels of the police and government goes on. As the Queensland police become more connected with their corrupt colleagues in Sydney, the era of heavy drugs and crime also begins. Tony Murphy and Glen Hallahan, two of the original “crooked kings,” become more enmeshed with “The Joke” which is run by bagman Jack Herbert. All Fall Down introduces new characters, more extraordinary behavior outside the law by the law, and along the way it charts the meteoric rise of police commissioner Terry Lewis. But with the arrival of the Fitzgerald Inquiry in the late 1980s, many will fall—and it’s not always the people who should. Once again award-winning journalist and novelist Matthew Condon has drawn from unprecedented access to Terry Lewis, as well as hundreds of interviews with key players and conspirators to craft the definitive account of the rise—and spectacular fall—of one man, an entire state, and over a generation of corruption.

All Fall Down

"I recall meeting Lewis on a number of occasions in company with Tony Murphy. I recall conversation getting around to payments of money with Murphy and Lewis. Lewis thanked me on several occasions and said ‘Little fish are sweet." —Jack ‘The Bagman’ Herbert in evidence to the Fitzgerald Inquiry 1988.  Little Fish Are Sweet is Matthew Condon’s extraordinary personal account of writing the Three Crooked Kings trilogy. When Condon first interviewed disgraced former police commissioner Terry Lewis, he had no idea that it would be the start of a turbulent six-year journey. As hundreds of people came forward to share their powerful and sometimes shocking stories, decades of crime and corruption were revealed in a new light.   Risking threats and intimidation, Condon tirelessly pursued his investigations into a web of cold murder cases and past conspiracies. What he discovered is much more sinister than anyone could have imagined. 

Little Fish Are Sweet

How a famous cold case, a deadly fire and a quest for justice finally brought down one of Australia's worst killers. 'He takes you in the middle of the night, like an angel, and you're gone for good.' - Witness at Vincent O'Dempsey's committal hearing for murder, 2015. In 2017, Vincent O'Dempsey was sentenced to life in prison for the brutal murders of Barbara McCulkin and her two young daughters. It took over 40 years to bring him to justice. Feared for decades by criminals and police alike, O'Dempsey associated with convicted underworld figures and has been linked to a string of haunting cold cases, including the deadly Whiskey au Go Go nightclub firebombing that killed 15 innocent people. Award-winning investigative journalist Matthew Condon has interviewed dozens of ex-cons, police and witnesses to put together a compelling picture of the calculating killer who spent his life evading the law before he was finally brought to justice.

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Books by Condon, Matthew