Nick Smart is fresh out of school, a wet-behind-the-ears jackaroo on a gap year. But at Palmenter Station, nothing is what it seems. Nick is about to discover there’s a lot of grey between black and white, between legal and illegal and between right and wrong.

2020 Red Maple Fiction Award — Shortlisted • 2021 Chocolate Lily Award — Winner “The fast-paced and suspenseful plot will keep readers rooting for Owen, Arturo, and the others.” —School Library Journal Owen’s plan to sail away on an adventure puts him on a collision course with some very dangerous people. When Owen’s parents leave him on his own for a week, the sixteen-year-old gets bored and hatches a crazy idea: sneak onto the yacht that’s visiting the sleepy Pacific Coast island where he lives and stow away on an adventure! Once on board the vessel, Owen quickly finds this is anything but innocent fun. The ship is packed with teenagers from Central America, and it looks like Owen has stumbled into a people-smuggling operation. Complications pile up and as things head from bad to worse, a haunting incident from Owen’s past tightens its grip on him. There’s only one way to break free and make his way home. Owen and the first mate, Arturo — a former street kid — must work together to commandeer the boat and win the trust of those on board. But who’s friend and who’s foe in the shifting tides?

Hop aboard for a desperate, deadly ride with Alan Carter, Amanda Curtin, Peter Docker, Deborah Robertson, Dave Warner and more. This is thrilling, jaw-clenching crime fiction from some of Australia’s finest.

This true crime memoir is both a “high-speed train trip through the modern cocaine trade” and a story of reform, redemption and family (Gerald Posner, and author of Pharma). Born in 1960, Jesus Ruiz Henao wanted to be rich like the drug dealers he saw as he grew up in the cocaine-producing region of Colombia’s Valle of the Cauca. In 1985, he moved to the quiet London suburb of Hendon, where he and his wife held down mundane cleaning and bus driving jobs. At least to outward appearances . . . While keeping a low profile, Henao built a drug trafficking network reaching from Colombia to England and across Europe. It was a risky business with law enforcement on one side and ruthless competitors on the other. By the summer of 2003, he decided to get out. But then he made the one mistake that would get him caught. It cost him a seventeen-year prison sentence, with more tacked on when he tried to make one last deal from behind prison walls. Co-written by Henao with bestselling author Ron Chepesiuk, The Real Mr. Big is the story of how an ambitious Colombian immigrant became known to law enforcement as “the Pablo Escobar of British drug trafficking.”

Who are the perpetrators of modern slavery? Why do they exploit others? What might be done to stop exploitation recurring? These are the questions answered in this book. Reporting on the first primary study of modern slavery offenders, the book depicts the findings of in-depth interviews with people accused of, and convicted for, committing modern slavery offences. The different forms that modern slavery takes are explained chapter by chapter: organized crime, people smuggling, labour exploitation, domestic servitude, sham marriage, the trafficking of adults for sexual exploitation and child sex trafficking. Using case studies to illuminate the perspectives of those deemed perpetrators, we show that few modern slavery offenders conform to stereotypes of people traffickers. Through an interpretive analysis of offenders’ life stories, we reveal the points in the past and present where interventions could have prevented victims from becoming trapped in exploitation. We show that while national governments and international bodies often appear resolute in their efforts to tackle modern slavery and people trafficking, they have also obscured their own roles in compounding the plights of those at the sharp ends of globalization. In racializing the actions of sex traffickers, grooming gangs, and organized criminals, the modern slavery agenda has mystified the roles market dynamics, the absence of workers’ rights, and immigration controls play in generating vulnerabilities to exploitation. This book will be of interest to a wide range of students, policymakers and practitioners concerned with modern slavery, human trafficking, border control and immigration, globalization and inequality, as well as the more disciplinefocused criminological audiences concerned with why people commit crimes, what should be done about them and the, often paradoxical, consequences of social control across borders. Given the book’s strong focus on narrative, psychosocial and social network methodologies, it will also appeal to audiences across the social sciences concerned with applying these novel approaches to difficult to reach populations.

The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began publication in 1873. Debates for sessions prior to 1873 are recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (1789-1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824-1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873)

Launching a new series, a podcaster and cult science fiction superfan stages a documentary to solve her friend’s murder, and a 40-year-old disappearance, in this riotous and fiendishly twisty mystery. Perfect for fans of classic TV such as Doctor Who and Star Trek, wobbly cardboard sets and spandex costumes, and sharp-witted amateur detective crime such as Richard Osman, J. M. Hall and Andrew Cartmel. Kit Pelham is a professional fan, interviewer, host of the podcast The First Cult is the Deepest, and occasional obituary writer. Except this time the obituary is for her friend, maverick podcaster Wolf Tyler, who has been murdered in his shed during a live broadcast, moments before revealing a huge secret about the cult TV show Vixens from the Void. Kit and her group of friends and fellow superfans soon realise Wolf had discovered something about the disappearance of Lily Sparkes, an extra on Vixens from the Void, back in 1986. And it was a secret worth killing for... To find justice for their friend, and much more importantly, new trivia about their favourite TV show, the gang decide to put together a “Then and Now” Blu-Ray documentary that will reunite the original cast and crew. Armed with only a shoestring budget, an occasionally soggy drone, action figures (in the original packaging) and encyclopaedic knowledge of 1980s sci-fi TV, they have just four days to discover Wolf’s secret, and solve his murder.

How the police create an imaginary criminal gang to trick homicide suspects into a confession and a prison cell There are people in prison who got away with murder until they told the boss of a powerful criminal gang all about it. When the handcuffs were snapped on, the killers learned they’d been duped — that “Mr. Big” was actually an undercover police officer. These killers ended up with lots of time to think about how tricky police can be. In this captivating book, we learn why Mr. Big is so good at getting killers to confess — and why he occasionally gets confessions from the innocent as well. We meet murderers such as Michael Bridges, who strangled his girlfriend and buried her in another person’s grave. Bridges remained free until he told Mr. Big where the body was buried. We also meet people like Kyle Unger, who lied while confessing to Mr. Big and went to prison for a crime he did not commit. The “Mr. Big” Sting is essential reading for anyone interested in unorthodox approaches to justice, including their successes and failures. It sheds light on how homicide investigators might catch and punish the guilty while avoiding convicting the innocent.

The current refugee crisis is the greatest humanitarian problem to have faced the European Union since its foundation. In response, the European Commission adopted a wide-ranging European Agenda on Migration on 13 May 2015. As part of this Agenda the Commission brought forward an EU Action Plan against Migrant Smuggling. The Action Plan sets out four priorities: enhanced police and judicial response; improved gathering and sharing of information; enhanced prevention of smuggling and assistance to vulnerable migrants; and, stronger cooperation with third countries. The aim of this inquiry was to look at the efficacy of the Action Plan ahead of the European Commission's own review of the legislation on migrant smuggling, which will be published in 2016 along with proposed reforms. Migrant smuggling is a serious criminal activity, but the Commission has rightly sought to place the Action Plan within the context of a broader approach to migration. The nature of migrant smuggling needs to be properly understood in order to develop an adequate and appropriate response. Evidence suggests that a majority of those currently entering the EU as irregular migrants are 'prima facie refugees', as defined by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. It is, therefore, important that as much focus is placed on the humanitarian aspects of the crisis as on law enforcement. At the same time, we support the high priority that is being given to guarding against migrant smuggling for the purpose of committing terrorist acts. Migrant smuggling is a complex and little understood phenomenon. It can involve organised criminal gangs at one end of the spectrum, and local groups, including groups of migrants themselves, who may have humanitarian motives, at the other. The Action Plan needs to recognise this complexity.