Australia War

Hector Cross, ex-SAS officer, private security expert, widower. His wife was taken much too soon, by a cruel man with evil intentions. Johnny Congo, psychopath, extortionist, terrorist, the man who murdered Hector's wife. Cross wants him dead. So does the US government. Congo is locked up on Death Row in the most secure prison in the free world, counting down the days until his execution. He's got two weeks. He wants out. He's escaped before and knows he can again. Cross, still licking his wounds from his last bruising encounter with Congo, is back and ready for work.

Hungary, 1943. As war encroaches on the country’s borders, willful young Eva arrives in the idyllic town of Sopron to spend her last summer as a single woman on her aristocratic family’s estate. Longing for freedom from her domineering father, she counts the days to her upcoming nuptials to a kind and dedicated Red Cross doctor whom she greatly admires. But Eva’s life changes when she meets Aleandro, a charming and passionate Romani fiddler with a love for painting. Eva and Aleandro fall deeply in love—only to be separated by a brutal act of hatred.

How did Corporal Hitler's Luger from the First World War end up being the weapon that killed an IRA turncoat in Kempsey, New South Wales, in 1933? When an affluent Kempsey matron spots a young Aboriginal boy who bears an uncanny resemblance to her husband, not only does she scream for divorce, attempt to take control of the child's future and upend her comfortable life, but the whole town seems drawn into chaos.

It's 1911, and 21-year-old Evelyn Northey desperately wants to become a doctor. Her medico father forbids it, withholding the inheritance that would allow her to go to university. At the outbreak of World War I, Evelyn disobeys her father: she enlists as an army nurse bound for Egypt to care for the wounded from the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.

Over thirty five thousand Australian soldiers and airmen are still listed as Missing In Action from the wars of the 20th Century. Telling the moving story of the determination and skill of the searchers who apply old-fashioned detective work and cutting-edge science to solve the mysteries of the missing and bring peace of mind and solace to their families and to all those who serve, Where Soldiers Lie follows these investigators and scientists on their mission to locate and identify unrecovered war casualties and to unlock their secrets.

The year 1942. Sadie Gault is 18 and living with her parents amid the horrors of the Kraków Ghetto during World War II. When the Nazis liquidate the ghetto, Sadie and her pregnant mother are forced to seek refuge in the perilous sewers beneath the city. One day Sadie looks up through a grate and sees a girl about her own age buying flowers.

The story of eight courageous women who had the courage and strength for which the Anzacs are renowned and the compassion and tenderness that only a woman can bring. One brave nursing sister, Hilda Samsing, became a whistle blower. Nursing aboard the hospital ship Gascon, outraged by the bungled evacuation of wounded Anzacs which was censored out of the press, she let her diary be shown in high places, which raised questions in the House of Commons.

Soon after the declaration of war on Japan, a secret military reconnaissance unit was established, based on the British Special Operations Executive (known as SOE) and called the Inter-allied Services Department. The unit was tasked with the role to "obtain and report information of the enemy...weaken the enemy by sabotage and destruction of morale and to lend aid and assistance to local efforts to the same end in enemy occupied territories."

Facing not onlt the astounding courage they displayed amid death and chaos but also on the triumphs and pain of their personal lives, Susanna reveals how these 11 Australian women were as influential and heroic in civil life as they were in war.

In Iraq, Captain Matthew Duffy, recruited by British Intelligence, once more faces a German enemy. But Matthew is confused by his attraction to Diane, now working for the Germans, and finds himself having to make a hard decision. Just as he is coming to terms with his choice, he meets his estranged son, James Barrington Jnr. Back in Sydney, George Macintosh is determined to keep control of his business empire and to prevent his nephew David from taking a seat on the Board. Meanwhile, George’s son Donald is packed off to the family station Glen View.

The Three Lives of Alix St Pierre is a thrilling, sumptuous work of historical fiction told in three timelines: before, during and after WWII. This completely immersive story takes listeners from the dangerous, intrigue-filled rooms in Switzerland where elites of both sides mingled and schemed during the war, to the glamorous halls of the House of Dior in the golden age of French fashion and journalism.

As the son of 'the Colonial', legendary Queen's Captain Ian Steele, Josiah Steele has big shoes to fill. Although his home in the colony of New South Wales is a world away, he dreams of one day travelling to England so he can study to be a commissioned officer in the Scottish Regiment. After cutting his teeth in business on the rough and ready goldfields of Far North Queensland's Palmer River, he finally realises his dream and travels to England, where he is accepted into the Sandhurst military academy.

Sixteen-year-old Nipper and his Gallipoli mates Lanky, Spud, Bluey and Wallaby Joe are starving, freezing and ill-equipped. By November 1915 they know that that there is more to winning a war than courage. The Gallipoli campaign has been lost. Nipper has played cricket with the Turks in the opposing dugout, dodged rocket fire and rescued drowning, freezing men when the blizzard snow melted. He is one of the few trusted with the secret kept from even most of the officers: how an entire army will vanish from the Peninsula over three impeccably planned nights.

Going to war may be the gravest decision a nation and its leaders make. At the moment Australia is at war with the Islamic State. We also live in a region that has become much more volatile, as China asserts itself and America seeks to hold the line. What is it like to go to war? How do we decide to go to war? Where might we go to war in the future? Will we get that decision right?

It was the evening of 16 May 1943. Nineteen modified Lancaster bombers from 617 Squadron RAF, under the command of youthful Wing Commander Guy Gibson, roared into the night sky from their Lincolnshire base. They were on a top-secret Bomber Command mission, codenamed Operation Chastise, now regarded as one of the most dangerous and audacious bombing raids of World War II - an attack on the formidable, well-defended dams of Germany’s Ruhr Valley. Slung beneath the belly of each aircraft was one of the war’s greatest secrets - a bouncing bomb.

Connie Starr was always a difficult child. Her mother knew as soon as Connie entered the world that day in Ballarat in 1934 and opened her lungs to scream, there was more chaos in the world than before and it wouldn't leave until Connie did. From the safety of a branch high in her lemon tree where she speaks to angels, she sees the world for what it is - a swirling mass of beauty and darkness, of trauma and family, of love and war and truth and lies - lies that might just undo her and drive her to a desperate act.

Reg Chard endured hell as an 18-year-old Australian soldier who fought in 1942 on the infamous Kokoda Trail in World War II. Ironically, Kokoda rescued Reg decades later when he decided to take his own life. After losing Betty, his wife of 66 years, the grief-stricken great-grandfather lost the will to live. But he found new purpose through educating young people, giving guided tours of Sydney's Kokoda Track Memorial Walkway. On these tours, Reg relives Kokoda every day.

The accounts in the contents of my father’s diaries expose the raw truth about the sacrifices, trauma, and the intense drive that drove our soldiers to fight and to win World War II. My father realized our God-given freedoms were being threatened and in harm’s way. I’ve heard him say: “There was a mission at hand and any sacrifices I made were all worth the fight to save this country from all the evil that was trying to overtake us.” He was also very explicit about how he felt toward those enemies. Some excerpts and entries in his diaries and letters are not politically correct. I...

Australia has been invaded. While the outnumbered Australian Defence Force fights on the ground, in the air, and at sea, this quickly becomes a war involving ordinary people. Ben, an IT consultant, has never fought a day in his life. Will he survive? Grant, a security guard at Sydney's International Airport, finds himself captured and living in the filth and squalor of one of the concentration camps dotted around Australia. Knowing death awaits him if he stays, he plans a daring escape.

From the deserts of Egypt to the rolling hills of South Australia, The Limestone Road is the extraordinary story of one man's courageous journey home.