Once upon a time in Melbourne there was a gigolo who thought he was a vampire. He bit the tongue off a prostitute and was then murdered in broad daylight on a suburban street. His execution, top brass believed, was organised by police. The aftershocks of this killing-and the murder of a state witness and his wife inside their fortress home - rocked the police force and the Parliament, vanquished one government and brought the next to its knees. This is the story of police corruption for years swept under the carpet to avoid a Royal Commission. It is the story of a police force politicised to the point of paralysis and a witness protection program that buries its mistakes. It involves a policeman still free and living in a very big house, a drug baron who survived the gangland war only to be murdered in the state's most secure jail, and battles royale within a police force comprised of thousands of pistol-packing members. This is the story of Melbourne around the first decade of the new millennium: its lawmen, villains and politicians. It is a bizarre, tawdry, unbelievable tale. But every word of it happened.

Finally the Tony Mokbel story can be told. the inspiration for Channel Nine's FAt tONY & CO, the new crime series from the producers of UNDERBELLY. An epic tale of family, crime and betrayal set against the backdrop of Melbourne's bullet-riddled suburbs. the cradle-to-cage story of how milk-bar owner tony Mokbel became the Mr Big of Melbourne's drug trade with tentacles reaching around Australia and the globe. Award-winning crime writer Liam Houlihan documents the extraordinary rise and fall of the man they call 'Fat tony', from his ascension through the drug trade to the decade-long and only-now-complete struggle to hold Mokbel to account for his crimes. Houlihan explores the criminal intrigue and political embarrassment arising from the daring and complex escape by public enemy number one - out from under the noses of the authorities - as well as the way wealthy criminals with access to smart lawyers are able to exploit the system and delay justice. Featuring exclusive interviews with top cops and Mokbel family members - and a cast of characters ranging from Zarah Garde-Wilson to Carl and Roberta Williams, Mick Gatto to Chopper Reed and Judy Moran - it's a stranger-than-fiction story of sex, pills, perfidy and pizza.

A bottle of blood is found buried in a wombat hole, but where is the body? Is a suburban couple paying the babysitter with freshly stolen money? Can a lucky leech outsmart a brazen burglar? Match wits with real life investigators to answer these questions, and also discover how nine of Western Australia's most wanted criminals escaped from Perth's Supreme Court in broad daylight; why an Adelaide wife sent her husband's privates to a fiery end; and how a Melbourne woman convinced high-level professionals to raise her stolen family at a cult in Eildon-undetected-for over twenty years. Cunning crims, cruel cults and common crackpots abound in these 12 fascinating true tales from the badlands of contemporary Australia. Journalist Liam Houlihan goes behind the headlines to prove truth is not only stranger than fiction but also more colourful, more baffling and more twisted.

Melding exclusive interviews with scrupulous research, this account covers the compelling psychological riddles, inspired investigations, and sensational plot twists of 13 intriguing contemporary homicides in Australia. From an elderly father and son's demise by being chopped to pieces by a tomahawk in Tasmania to the deaths of two Thai prostitutes bound and thrown into a Northern Territory river teeming with crocodiles, this riveting record chronicles baffling, bizarre, and brutal murders. Bumbling junkies, rich white rappers, illustrious art critics, deranged killers, and tenacious cops all play key roles in the events that made Australian headlines.