Wrongly convicted of double murder in New Zealand's most baffling homicide inquiry, Arthur Allan Thomas spent nine years in prison before his convictions were finally quashed. Now, he's decided to finally reveal the full details of what happened to him inside, and outside, of jail. Award-winning investigative journalist Ian Wishart has hunted down significant new leads, and for the first time Arthur Allan Thomas describes his arrest, his time behind bars, and his life since his release. An incredible, never-before-told story.
On 17th June, 1970, in a small farming district, south of Auckland, New Zealand, Harvey and Jeanette Crewe were shot and killed in the lounge of their home. Five months later, a neighbour, Arthur Allan Thomas, was arrested, charged and found guilty of their murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. A retrial in 1972 ended with another guilty verdict. David Yallop, author of To Encourage the Others and The Day the Laughter Stopped, two already celebrated books which dealt with miscarriages of justice, spent over a year in New Zealand investigating the case and became convinced of Thomas' innocence. in an open letter to New Zealand's Prime Minister, he demanded Thomas' release on the grounds that he 'has not been found guilty beyond reasonable doubt. He has in fact been found innocent beyond reasonable doubt.' In 1978, as a direct result of Yallop's intercession and the publication of this book, Thomas was granted a royal pardon and, in 1980, awarded nearly 1 million dollars in compensation for the nine years he had served behind bards. Beyond Reasonable Doubt? is both a riveting work of high drama and a compelling insight into the machinery of criminal justice. A Number One bestseller in hgardcover and the subject of a widely-acclaimed film, it is a lasting testimony to David Yallop's reputation as the world's greatest investigative author.
"The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket", a story by Edgar Allan Poe, recounts the adventure of Pym, who embarks clandestinely on a whaler. After a mutiny and various adversities, including cannibalism and natural disasters, the story culminates in a mysterious and inconclusive encounter at the South Pole.
R v Watson is the legal description of perhaps New Zealand s most infamous murder case: a prosecution involving a 5 month police inquiry in1998, a three month trial in 1999, and an Appeal against Conviction in 2000, all involving the blatant deceiving of the public by high-ranking police and legal officials.
The true story behind the 'Fatty Arbuckle' Scandal David Yallop is no stranger to controversy. The impact of his investigations in such bestsellers as In God's Name, Beyond Reasonable Doubt and To Encourage the Others has reverberated around the world. In The Day the Laughter Stopped, he uncovers the incredible true story behind the Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle scandal of 1921, when the fat film comedian stood accused of the rape and murder of a pretty screen actress. Arbuckle's is the story of a man born in extreme poverty who was destined to rise to the heights of a multi-million dollar career, only to have it snatched from him by a wave of hysteria and bigotry that swept the globe. It is the story of Hollywood and what really happened in the corridors of power; the political corruption of San Francisco; the immorality of a president. How Charlie Chaplin's career was saved. How Buster Keaton's was begun. Both by Arbuckle. It is a life story that ranges from comic heights to tragic depths. The Day the Laughter Stopped confirms David Yallop's reputation as the world's greatest investigative author, combining exhaustive research with compulsive narrative.
Renowned as the creator of the detective story and a master of horror, the author of "The Red Mask of Death," "The Black Cat," and "The Murders of the Rue Morgue," Edgar Allan Poe seems to have derived his success from suffering and to have suffered from his success. "The Raven" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" have been read as signs of his personal obsessions, and "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Descent into the Maelstrom" as symptoms of his own mental collapse. Biographers have seldom resisted the opportunities to confuse the pathologies in the stories with the events in Poe's life. Against this tide of fancy, guesses, and amateur psychologizing, Arthur Hobson Quinn's biography devotes itself meticulously to facts. Based on exhaustive research in the Poe family archive, Quinn extracts the life from the legend, and describes how they both were distorted by prior biographies. "
Read the book that inspired the movie! Sixteen-year-old Starr lives in two worlds: the poor neighbourhood where she was born and raised and her posh high school in the suburbs. The uneasy balance between them is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer. Now what Starr says could destroy her community. It could also get her killed. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping novel about one girl's struggle for justice.
Working from the original documents from 200 years ago, Wishart directly challenges the findings of books like Michael King's "Penguin History of New Zealand" and Claudia Orange's "Treaty of Waitangi, " and in doing so offers a fresh new perspective on an issue affecting every New Zealander.
