Susanna Lobez

Sport has always attracted organised crime. Huge sums of money are wagered in every arena, and rorts, swindles and unsporting behaviour have shadowed players of all codes. Cricket and footy are not immune, with Heath Shaw and Ben Cousins caught up in gambling and drugs, and NRL star Ryan Tandy in match-fixing. Plenty of punters have criminal connections-Alphonse Gangitano and the Moran brothers. Drugs play a major part on and off the fields of play (looking at you, Essendon Football Club and Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks) with horses and greyhounds also routinely doped. James Morton and Susanna Lobez investigate the cheating underbelly of sport, from the first cricket pitch invasion in the 1890s through to the contemporary scandals that will leave you wondering if there is such a thing as a sporting chance.

Since the arrival of the First Fleet, thousands of prisoners have escaped from prison, police stations, courts, prison vans and hospitalsâ??even dentists' chairs. They have driven, walked, pedalled, swum or sailed away from custody. Some have killed or been killed in the process; a few have gone overseas or escaped from foreign prisons, and a handful have remained at home, undetected. Gangland: The Great Escapes is filled with tall tales of crimsâ?? Ronald Ryan, Jockey Smith, Brenden Abbott, Julie Wright and Annie Davis, and many othersâ??who have been recaptured in minutes and those who have stayed on the run.

Australia has had its fair share of high class robbers and robberies—documented here for the first time in one comprehensive account. This will be a history of robberies in Australia from the days when holdups took place on horseback and butcher’s drays were used as getaway vehicles, to today when the touch of a button has often replaced a pull on the trigger. Gangland: The Robbers will look at how trends have changed; criminals have come to terms with developments designed to defeat them, such as the ‘Raminator’, a device that prevents ram-raiding vehicles from dislodging ATMs; how some forms of robbery have fallen completely out of fashion and others developed. It will also look closely at what happened after the robberies and the robbers who evaded capture, served their sentences or were acquitted.

The sensational murder convictions this winter of former NSW detectives Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara for the killing of drug dealer Jamie Gao has meant that previously suppressed material in Bent can at last be read. James Morton and Susanna Lobez have illustrated, in several Gangland books, that Australia almost certainly has out-ganged other countries. Now their spotlight is turned on corruption within the police services and identifying which state wins the bent cop handicap. Morton and Lobez examine the problems that started with the First Fleet and spread through to the present day, looking at the trouble caused by greed, power, drink, sex, money and, most recently, drugs. They compare the experience in Australia with corruption in America, England and Hong Kong, concentrating in particular on organised corruption at the highest levels, including judges, lawyers and politicians, through to the petty criminals who work our streets. Which state has the shadiest cops? The answer will surprise you.

Following the success of their bestselling Gangland Australia, James Morton and Susanna Lobez turn their attention to crime and criminals, both organised and disorganised, in Australia and New Zealand over the last century. Dangerous to Know documents murderers known and not so well known, conmen and their victims, street gangs of the early twentieth century, crime lords of the 1920s, dock warlords of the 1970s, bikers, sex offenders and the drug gangs of today, as well as the wrongly accused and wrongly convicted. They're all here, as well as the police, lawyers and judges who have tried to deal with them.

From the authors of the best selling books Gangland Australia, Gangland Melbourne and Gangland Sydney, comes the next thrilling instalment in the series. Gangland Queensland heads north of the border to tell exploits of a colourful pantheon of mobsters, shysters, club owners, drug dealers, Black Hand gangs, crooked police and bikers over the last century. Beginning with the drug and sex trades of the early 1900s, and including the infamous fire at the Whiskey Au Go Go club, the explosive revelations of The Fitzgerald Inquiry and organised crime syndicates like Japans Yakuza, authors James Morton and Susanna Lobez examine the scale of Queenslands crime scene in forensic and fascinating detail. Gangland Queensland is compulsive reading.

Gangland Sydney details the exploits of an unforgettable cast of villains, crooks and mobsters who have defined the criminal and gangland scene in Sydney from the mid-1800s to the present day. In this compelling book, Britain's top true crime author James Morton and barrister and legal broadcaster Susanna Lobez track the rise and fall of Sydney's standover men, contract killers, robbers, brothel keepers, biker gangs and drug dealers, and also examine the role of police, politicians and lawyers who have helped and hindered the growth of these criminal empires. Vivid and explosive, Gangland Sydney is compulsive reading.

Throughout the past century, Melbourne has spawned its fair share of notorious criminals some more infamous than others. In this compelling and comprehensive book, Britain s top true crime writer James Morton and former barrister and legal broadcaster Susanna Lobez take you on a tour of Melbourne s criminal past, visiting Australia s favourite larrikin Squizzy Taylor, career criminals Chopper Read and the Pettingill family, as well as chronicling the long-running Painters and Dockers Union and recent Melbourne gang wars. Along the way, tales of Melbourne's talented standover men, contract killers, robbers, conmen, brothel keepers, biker gangs, drug dealers and corrupt cops offer an extraordinary insight into this colourful and mysterious world.

Gangland Australia details the exploits of an unforgettable cast of villains, crooks and mobsters who have made up the criminal and gangland scene in Australia. One of Britain's top true crime authors, James Morton, is joined by barrister-turned-legal-broadcaster Susanna Lobez in this fast-paced examination of Australian organised crime. Tracing the developments in and the shifting dynamics of Australia's criminal underworld from the early 1800s until the Melbourne gangland killings of recent years, this is compulsive reading.