June True Crime Releases

Having a bit of a scout around I have managed to find 2 Australian true crime new releases this month. I'll be happy to hear of any other newies to add to the list if you want to let me know about them.

The Devil's Garden: The Claremont Serial Killings by Debi Marshall (pub. Random House)

Claremont is a suburb of Perth, a decent, fairly quiet part of the world where you can rightfully expect to safely walk the streets alone at night. But in the mid-1990s 3 women went missing in close succession after walking out of nightclubs in the area. The police investigation has been ongoing ever since.

Debi Marshall takes us into all aspects of the investigation raising questions about the police investigation (to which the WA police responds forcefully here). The bodies of two of the women were discovered but the 3rd has never been found. She also poses the question of how many other missing women can be attributed to the Claremont killer.

Debi Marshall has twice been nominated for Ned Kelly Awards for her true crime books with Killing For Pleasure: The Definitive Story of the Snowtown Murders and Justice in Jeopardy.

Killing Jodie: How Australias Most Elusive Murderer was Brought to Justice by Janet Fife-Yeomans (pub. Viking)

Jodie Larcombe was murdered in the late 1980s and her murderer managed to escape conviction for the crime on a number of occasions. But Sydney police refused to give up on the case, despite all the obstacles put in their way and eventual begin to home in on their man.

Janet Fife-Yeomans' previous true crime books include The Coroner: Investigating Sudden Death, which she wrote with NSW State Coroner Derrick Hand.

What about a competition?

Okey-doke, I haven't read either of these books and I already have a big backlog of books waiting to be read. However, I would like to post a review of both of them here at some stage, so here's the deal. Let's make a little competition out of this. The first person who sends me a review (of at least 200 words) of one or the other of these books will receive a recently released novel (your choice I'll send you a list). My bookshelves are full to overflowing with novels from Australia and overseas. So come on, if you've already read the book and would like to tell the world about it, send it in and I'll put it up (fully attributed to you, of course).