August2018 pub cat

NON - FI CT I ON AUGUS T 2018

The Pacific with Sam Neill ME AG H AN W I L SON ANA S TA S I OS

9781460756232 e 9781460710234 AU $39.99 NZ $45.00 Hardback | 400pp Released: 23/07/18 Australian Heist J AME S PH E L P S

The PAC I F I C IN THE WAKE OF CAPTAIN COOK with Sam Neill

9781460756393 e 9781460710364 AU $39.99 NZ $45.00 Hardback | 272pp Released: 23/07/18

Sydney, NSW

NOWAMAJOR

Australia’s #1 true crime writer on Australia’s greatest ever gold robbery.

Fascinating, engaging, fresh and vital; this is history – but not as you

SERIES

MEAGHAN WILSON ANASTASIOS

In January 2012, having covered a Somali pirate trial in Hamburg for Spiegel Online International – and funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting – Michael Scott Moore travelled to the Horn of Africa to write about piracy and ways to end it. In a terrible twist of fate, Moore himself was kidnapped and held captive by Somali pirates. Subjected to conditions that would break even the strongest of spirits, Moore’s survival is a testament to his indomitable strength of mind. Moore offers an intimate and otherwise inaccessible view of life as we cannot fathom it, brilliantly weaving his own experience as a hostage with the social, economic, religious and political factors creating it. Voyaging on a wide variety of vessels, from container ships to fishing trawlers and sailing boats, Neill crosses the length and breadth of the largest ocean in the world to experience for himself a contemporary journey in Cook’s footsteps, engaging the past and present in both modern and ancient cultural practice and peoples. Publicity Contact: lara.wallace@hapercollins.com.au know it. Now a major Foxtel series, The Pacific with Sam Neill will air on Foxtel’s History Channel. The Pacific with Sam Neill is the companion book to the Foxtel documentary series of the same name, in which actor and raconteur Sam Neill takes a deeply personal, present-day voyage to map his own understanding of James Cook, Europe’s greatest navigator, and the immense Pacific Ocean itself. Captain James Cook first set sail to the Pacific in 1768, 250 years ago. These vast waters, one-third of the Earth’s surface, were uncharted – but not unknown. Neill says, ‘While there is no question that Cook was one of the greatest explorers and navigators of all time, every place he “discovered” had been discovered hundreds if not thousands of years before, everywhere unknown was already known, every place he claimed for the Crown was already occupied. Everywhere he went he was quickly followed by others who had mostly an utterly devastating effect on those who had gone before – those who had found and settled in this vast ocean.’

On 15 June 1862, a gang of bushrangers pulled off the largest gold robbery in Australia’s history at Eugowra Rocks. The gang escaped with banknotes and 77kg of gold, worth about $10 million today. It remains Australia’s largest gold robbery. The story of how Ben Hall, Frank Gardiner, John O’Meally, John Gilbert, Harry Manns, Alex Fordyce, John Bow and Dan Charters planned and executed the robbery and what happened to all that gold is the stuff of a brilliant, modern, exciting crime book. This is Australian history on the very best crime-writing steroids from Australia’s number one true crime writer. James Phelps is an award-winning senior reporter for The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph . He began his career as a journalist as an overnight police rounds reporter before moving into sport, where he became one of Australia’s best news-breaking rugby league reporters. He later became News Corp Australia’s Chief National Motorsports Writer and Australia’s number one V8 Supercar reporter. Following the bestselling Dick Johnson: The Autobiography of a True-Blue Aussie Sporting Legend , James returned to his roots with a bestselling series of true crime books: Australia’s Hardest Prison: Inside the Walls of Long Bay Jail ; Australia’s Most Murderous Prison ; and Australia’s Toughest Prisons: Inmates .

Publicity Contact: lara.wallace@harpercollins.com.au

The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast M I C H A E L S COT T MOO R E

9780062881557 e 9780062449191 AU $29.99 NZ $36.99 Trade Paperback | 464pp Released: 23/07/18

Publicity Contact: nicola.woods@harpercollins.com.au

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