Showing results by narrator "Steve Shanahan" in All Categories

Within 24 hours of the Japanese invasion of Northern New Guinea at Gona in July 1942, the Australian militiamen of ‘B’ Company, 39th Battalion, spent four weeks fighting a delaying action against a crack Japanese force outnumbered by three to one. By mid-August, the rest of the battalion had arrived, and these men took up a position at Isurava, in the heart of the cloud-covered mountains and jungles of the Owen Stanley Range. The battle for Isurava would be the defining battle of the Kokoda Campaign and has rightfully been described as Australia’s Thermopylae.

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." 

Japanese Major General Horii TomitarO, commanding the South Seas Force, had the Australians on the back foot. Australia was holding the last defendable ridge in the Owen Stanley ranges, Imita Ridge. Horii to his distress was then given orders from Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo that he was to fall back across the mountains to the Japanese beachheads at Gona, Sanananda, and Buna, leaving a force between Templeton's Crossing and Eora Creek to stop any Australian advance through the mountains.

Hirsch's rural beat is wide. Daybreak to day's end, dirt roads and dust. Every problem that besets small towns and isolated properties, from unlicensed driving to arson. In the time of the virus, Hirsch is seeing stresses heightened and social divisions cracking wide open. His own tolerance under strain; people getting close to the edge.

The first comprehensive biography of the godfather of Australian bushranging – Frank Gardiner – leader of the Lachlan gang and mastermind of the largest gold heist in Australian history. Atop the hierarchy of Australian bushrangers sits Ned Kelly – the ultimate outlaw – and just below...

Five women reluctantly leave the city for a challenging hike across the rugged Giralang Ranges as part of a corporate retreat. Only four come out the other side. Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk has a particularly keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing bushwalker. Alice Russell is the...

Adventure into the Australian outback with Kelso Hunnicutt who has bet he can dodge the police for the next week. A partner who frames him for murder. A beautiful wife who double-crosses him. An innocent bet that could cost him his life. A compelling thriller about a man and a woman who will stop at nothing to get what they want...and the man trapped between them.

With nothing to lose, including your life, you may as well turn up life's throttle.... Stephen Malek's just been sacked from his job as a hack journalist. He believes, due to illness, he has only a year to live. With diminishing sexual powers, an overprotective mother and a money-grabbing ex-wife, he's got nothing left to lose. Not even his life. In a desperate race against time, he embarks on an exhilarating and death-defying global adventure.... From the best-selling author of Bet Your Life comes a blistering tale of heart-stopping action.

Welcome to Scot Free. It’s the show bringing reality TV to a murderous new low. Ten strangers–five convicted killers and a relative of each victim–are thrust together under the watchful eye of unseen host Scot. To escape the studio house alive, each player must identify their match and eliminate them. Permanently. Grieving Jay is snatched away from his pregnant girlfriend to join the deadly game. Desperate to learn who murdered his estranged sister, Harriet, he leaps headfirst into the lives of his fellow contestants.

A truly comprehensive account of 617 Squadron, RAF, ​who carried out one of the most dangerous and audacious aerial bombing raids of World War II. It was the evening of 16 May 1943. Nineteen modified Lancaster bombers from 617 Squadron RAF, under the command of youthful Wing Commander Guy...

From the author of bestselling Sisters in Captivity, seven remarkable stories of men who served from WWI to Korea – their wartime exploits and achievements through aviation. Based on personal interviews conducted by the author over many years, Australia’s Aviation Heroes celebrates the...

Lawyer Tom McLaren makes a trip to the outback, where he hopes to talk an Aboriginal community into giving up their land to his client, a mining magnate. Negotiations prove difficult and lengthy, and Tom and his colleagues take a weekend trip deep into the outback, where they hope to get some fresh ideas. To their horror, they become caught in a dangerous altercation with a deranged gunman, and their trip soon becomes a nightmare.

Australia's greatest escape stories from two world wars Australia’s Greatest Escapes is a collection of stories about the most hazardous aspect of the prisoner of war experience – escape. Here is all the adventure, suspense and courage of ordinary Australians who defied their captors; men...

Constable Paul Hirschhausen runs a one-cop station in the dry farming country south of the Flinders Ranges. He’s still new in town but the community work—welfare checks and working bees—is starting to pay off. Now Christmas is here and, apart from a grass fire, two boys stealing a ute and...

WINNER OF THE NED KELLY AWARD FOR BEST CRIME FICTION Australia's favourite country cop, Hirsch, is back in Consolation, the follow-up to Peace and Bitter Wash Road. Winter in Tiverton. Constable Paul Hirschhausen has a snowdropper on his patch. Someone is stealing women’s underwear, and Hirsch...