Tom Gilling – författare

The marines on the First Fleet refused to sail without it. Convicts risked their necks to get hold of it. Rum built a hospital and sparked a revolution, made fortunes and ruined lives. In a society with few luxuries, liquor was power. It played a crucial role, not just in the lives of individuals like James Squire - the London chicken thief who became Australia's first brewer - but in the transformation of a starving penal outpost into a prosperous trading port.Drawing on a wealth of contemporary sources, Grog offers an intoxicating look at the first decades of European settlement and explores the origins of Australia's fraught love affair with the hard stuff.

'Donald Mackay was not just an innocent victim tragically struck down by a criminal act. He was a casualty of the actual fight against organised crime ... killed on active service, as it were ... His name should never be forgotten, his passing must not be allowed to be in vain.'The assassination of Donald Mackay was meant to solve a problem for the mafia. Instead it roused the law-abiding citizens of Griffith to fight against the powerful criminal elements who had made their town synonymous with drugs and murder.Drawing on the personal diaries and memories of Terry Jones - who, as the editor of the local newspaper, knew everyone and heard everything - The Griffith Wars reveals startling new evidence about one of Australia's most notorious unsolved murders. It also powerfully recounts the struggle for the soul of a country town still battling to shake off its criminal past.

'The way I look at it is this...When you're behind the line and get yourself into trouble, you've got to get your bloody self out irrespective of anybody else. That's why I like it.'Scottish-born but a Queenslander to the bone, Jock McLaren was a true Australian hero. As a prisoner he escaped twice, first from Changi and later from the infamous Sandakan POW camp in Borneo. After paddling a dugout canoe across open sea, he fought for two years with American-led Filipino guerrillas, his exploits so audacious the Japanese put a price on his head.At the helm of his 26-foot whaleboat, the Bastard, McLaren sailed brazenly into enemy-held harbours, wreaking havoc with his mortar and machine guns before heading back out to sea. In early 1945 he joined Australia's secretive Z Special Unit, parachuting into Borneo to carry out reconnaissance and organise anti-Japanese resistance ahead of Allied landings. He cheated death on numerous occasions and saved his own life by removing his appendix without anaesthetic, using 'two large dessert spoons' and a razor blade.Drawing on Allied and Japanese wartime documents, Bastard Behind the Lines brings the story of a courageous digger vividly to life and throws light on a rarely explored aspect of Australia's Pacific war.