Australia War

Shocking real-life stories of murderous women who used rat poison to rid themselves of husbands and other inconvenient family members. After World War II, Sydney experienced a crime wave that was chillingly calculated. Discontent mixed with despair, greed with callous disregard. Women who had lost their wartime freedoms headed back into the kitchen with sinister intent and the household poison thallium, normally used to kill rats, was repurposed to kill husbands and other inconvenient family members.

“You heard me. That old Dutchman has a gold mine on Sulawesi, what else do we need to know?” Clyde exclaimed. “Are you crazy? The Japanese control that island. We don’t have a ship, a crew or any money!” Neville responded. With those words Clyde and Neville, our Coast Watcher duo, several cards short of a full deck are off on another adventure behind enemy lines in the South Pacific. Cunning and devious, they are rarely deterred at having to work outside the law. Their ability to come into the possession of large sums of money quickly is only equaled by their ability to lose it. ...

As a National Public Radio reporter covering the last stand of the Taliban in Afghanistan's southern borderland, Sarah Chayes became deeply immersed in the attempt to rebuild a broken nation. With her NPR assignment finished in early 2002, she left reporting to help turn around the country's fortunes, accepting a job running a nonprofit founded by President Hamid Karzai's brother. With remarkable access to leading players in the postwar government, Chayes witnessed a tragic, perverse turn of events.

Berlin, 1934. Sofie Rhodes is the aristocratic wife of a scientist whose post-WWI fortunes change for the better when her husband, Jurgen, is recruited for Hitler's new rocket project. But too late they realise the Nazis' plans to weaponise Jurgen's technology as they begin to wage war against the rest of Europe. Alabama, 1949 Jurgen is one of hundreds of Nazi scientists offered pardons and taken to the US to work for the CIA's fledgling space programme. Sofie, now the mother of four, misses Germany terribly and struggles to fit in among the other NASA wives.

With the introduction of Conscription in the 1960s, it was realised that Australia’s defence forces would now have access to a wider pool of talented men, other than those that normally volunteer for service. Major Jack Roberts was tasked by the defence department to form a small group from the National Servicemen to take on some unique tasks. He chose three young men that had shown signs of being able to work with anyone from different backgrounds or ethnic groups. These three men were a Christian, a Jew and a Moslem. After being whisked away from their regiment, as it sailed for Vietnam...

The true story of Deng Adut - Sudanese child soldier, refugee, man of hope. Movingly narrated by Blessing Mokgohloa. Deng Adut's family were farmers in South Sudan when a brutal civil war altered his life forever. At six years old, his mother was told she had to give him up to fight. At the age most Australian children are starting school, Deng was conscripted into the Sudan People's Liberation Army.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Private Joseph Caan, a young Jewish soldier stationed in Germany, seeks the truth about lost family members; in the 1960s a father focuses on his daughter’s wedding even as the Cuban Missile Crisis brings the world to the brink of disaster; in 2001, while planes fly into the Twin Towers, a maid working for US Embassy staff in London wonders if her birth on the day of the Kennedy assassination shaped her life.

The war seems a long way away to Maggie Flanagan. Her brother is somewhere across the sea, flying to protect England from the Germans and the Italians. But Maggie is more interested in kicking the footy and finding out who's going to play for St Kilda this season. When the war comes to Australia and Maggie sees what she's sure is a Japanese spy plan in the skies of Melbourne, it all gets very real. The Japanese attack Australia up north and American soldiers start appearing on the streets. Worst of all, it looks like the football season will be cancelled!

South Australia is affected by war carnage continuing in distant Europe A fierce conscientious objector abhors the thought of sending soldiers to war A little boy could be locked away for ‘scientific’ reasons One of Australia’s first policewomen discovers crimes driven by greed, prejudice and lust for power Adelaide, 1917 Day by day, the morale of South Australia’s people sinks to more dismal depths. Elsie Fisher nurtures little Neddy’s singing talent while pursuing her own musical ambitions. Their music becomes a powerful facilitator for improving the lives of others. But can ...

A unique collection of poignant, horrific, sad and sometimes dryly humorous stories and yarns from the bloody battlefield of Gallipoli. This is not a history, nor is it an individual soldier's story. Rather Jim Haynes has done what he does so well and pulled together the many yarns and stories and verses written about Gallipoli - everything from the firsthand accounts of being recruited to memories of ordinary soldiers written from the trenches and accounts of the aftermath.

This is the story of an Irish migrant family and their struggle to buy their own stud farm in Australia towards the end of the 19th Century. Kieran O'Reilly, the 14 year old son of a horse breeder and trainer, is delighted when his father, Dermot, secures a deal to rent a run-down stud farm on the Darling Downs from Old Man Purcell, a wealthy and unscrupulous Englishman who is shedding his farms to buy into a local brewery. The rent is high and much needs to be done on the farm. And to make matters worse, Purcell has laid down stringent conditions to the deal, the most crucial of which is a...

Young married private detectives, Debbie and Jeremy Hadley, discover that Debbie's family, the Danforths, have a family secret. Grandma Marie Danforth summons them because she fears that alienated family members and underworld characters will attempt to wrest control of the secret from her. The history of the secret begins at the American Civil War Battle of Gettysburg and develops through a century and a half of Danforth family twists and intrigues. Although written as a continuous story, Impending actually is two novels in one: the saga of how the secret developed from its inception to ...

Will Trent is undercover at Fort Knox. His assignment: to investigate a 22-year-old murder. His suspect's name: Jack Reacher. Jack Reacher is in Fort Knox on his own mission: to bring down a dangerous criminal ring operating at the heart of America’s military. Except now Will Trent is on the scene. But there’s a bigger conspiracy at play - one that neither the special agent nor the ex-military cop could have anticipated.

LAST UPDATED MAY 2018 Prior to the Second World War, Japan and Australia had been successful trading partners, but after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour, Australia was soon at war with Japan. Various attacks by Japan soon followed and the citizens of Australia became afraid and were ready to bolt inland from the coastal regions. In 1942, General McArthur set up his headquarters for the Pacific in Brisbane and, as a result, the city needed a civilian population to ensure the smooth operation of its essential services. Due to its proximity to the Pacific battlefronts, it was a crucial ...

Bangka Strait, Indonesia, 1942. Allied ships are evacuating thousands in flight from Singapore, the island having fallen to Japanese Imperial forces. Facing terrifying assaults by fighter planes, one ship, the Vyner Brooke, is badly bombed and sinks. Its survivors swim or paddle for hours to the nearest land, a beach on Bangka Island, parched, many dreadfully injured One of the survivors is Australian Army nurse Dorothy 'Bud' Elmes, the great-aunt of Georgina Banks. Bud makes it to the island, where she, colleagues and a matron tend to the wounded as a plan is formulated.

In the summer of 1914, vigneron Jerome Méa heads off to war, certain he'll be home by Christmas. His new bride Sophie, a fifth-generation champenoise, is determined to ensure the forthcoming vintages will be testament to their love and the power of the people of Épernay, especially its strong women. But as the years drag on, authorities advise that Jerome is missing, considered dead. When poison gas is first used in Belgium by the Germans, British chemist Charles Nash jumps to enlist.

Evelyn Varley has always been ambitious and clever. As a girl, she earned a scholarship to a prestigious academy well above her parents’ means, gaining her a best friend from one of England’s wealthiest families. In 1939, with an Oxford degree in hand and war looming, Evelyn finds herself recruited into an elite MI5 counterintelligence unit. A secret society seeks an alliance with Germany and, posing as a Nazi sympathizer, Evelyn must build a case to expose their treachery. But as she is drawn deeper into duplicity, some of those close to her become embroiled in her investigation.

In the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe of the Cuban Missiles War of October 1962 the British government and its surviving Commonwealth allies were in a state of shock. ‘Operation Manna’ is about what happened in the days and weeks after the first twenty-four hours of Armageddon. In Britain the priority was to restore the rule of law, to begin to piece together what was left of the country after the hammer blows which had obliterated London, Liverpool, Chatham, Gravesend, Canterbury and half-wrecked others. Operation Manna is the story of how the nation was saved; filling in the ...

A touching story of eternal love, unbroken promises, and life after death. When young Australian nurse and widow Annie Wilkins leaves for London to assist with the war effort, she promises the three children she leaves behind that she will always be there. Each and every night, Annie diligently writes a letter home to remind her children that she will never be gone as long as she remains in their hearts. As Annie settles into her new life in war-torn London, she faces challenges that she'd never anticipated but the thought of seeing her children again keeps her moving forward. Life at the ...

Berlin, 1943. As the Allied forces edge closer, the Third Reich tightens its grip on its people. For 18-year-old Susanna Göttmann, this means her adopted family including the man she loves, Leo, are at risk. Desperate to protect her loved ones any way she can, Susie accepts the help of an influential Nazi officer. But it comes at a terrible cost - she must abandon any hope of a future with Leo and enter the frightening world of the Nazi elite.