Book Description

The Most Dangerous Detective is a sensational expose of crime, sexual intrigue, corruption and Machiavellian politics by former Fleet Street investigative reporter Steve Bishop.With a foreword by former Queensland Premier Mike Ahern, this true story contains the key elements of a whodunnit and a thriller, with complex plots to disentangle, clues to analyse and false leads which lead to tension as the hunt closes in on the villain who time and again escapes his pursuers.The devious and cunning political plotting could stand alone as a tale of intrigue as Premiers of different eras select crooked police officers as commissioners, supposedly independent inquiries produce the results desired by government and the leading anti-corruption campaigner has his parliamentary career killed off.Come on a journey through three states and the Northern Territory; three gruesome murders in the scorched, red heart of the outback; a miscarriage of justice in the prim and proper city of Adelaide; the creation of a luxury brothel empire in Sydney in the swinging sixties; and there's even a side trip to genteel Eastbourne, in England, to meet a serial lady-killer. But you'll be spending most of your time in sub-tropical Brisbane with its verandad wooden houses on quarter-acre blocks, palms and poincianas, hilltop views and shady valleys, its broad convoluted river and its laid back lifestyle.The result of a quarter of a century's research and interviews with political leaders, senior police and barristers, The Most Dangerous Detective also charts the awakening of Australians from the naive innocence of the late 50s through to the cynicism of the 80s.Did Glen Patrick Hallahan, who became famous as the ace detective who solved the Sundown Murders and won the George Medal for bravery send an innocent man to the gallows? Did he execute Jack 'Bingo' Cooper who kept his eyes down when talking but kept his ears open and may have learned too much?Did he murder his mistress, the brothel queen who had once lied at a Royal Commission in order to protect him and his colleagues?The Most Dangerous Detective provides the evidence to help answer these questions but this is also a multi-layered story in which two state premiers, three judges and a crime reporter who rose to be an editor are shown to have made decisions or reached conclusions which were at least perverse.The book calls for a posthumous pardon in one murder case and for another murder case to be re-opened.Holding the stage through this story of murders, organised crime, perjury, planted evidence, invented confessions, protection from on high, a major heroin importation, a bank robbery, political corruption, protection rackets and other appalling behaviour is the man who struck fear into even a federal political leader, Glen Patrick Hallahan, the most dangerous detective.Meet memorable characters, such as:Shirley Brifman, who wore the cast-offs from 12 brothers and sisters growing up in country Queensland before becoming Sydney's richest madame; Col Bennett, a 43-year-old bespectacled barrister who's prepared to fight with his fists as well as with eloquence; John Milligan, a slightly effeminate former judge's associate with the IQ of a genius who gets his kicks by becoming a criminal;Gunther Bahnemann, double Iron Cross winner and crocodile wrestler, who becomes a successful author from a prison cell.Author Steve Bishop was a senior reporter and feature writer for Queensland's Sunday Sun from 1982 to 1989 and finished his career as principal media advisor to Premier Peter Beattie from 1998 to 2007.A journalist since 1965, he gained a master's degree in journalism in 1998 with research which included an 85,000-word thesis on why and how the media had failed to expose endemic corruption in Queensland in the 30 years between 1957 and 1987.Further information: www.stevebishop.net