Never To Be Released: Australia’s Most Vicious Murderers is the fourth volume of the ‘Never to be Released’ series. What made you decide to write another book in this series?
Why not? The first three in the series had been extremely successful and are all still on sale including the first in the series which was published in 1993. People obviously like reading about the worst of the worst and watching them put away forever without the possibility of parole. Australians are a very revengeful lot.

How do you go about researching for your books?
Court transcripts of the trial, internet articles by the journalists who cover the cases, relatives of the victims etc. Having once been a freelance researching producer with 60 Minutes opens a lot of doors for me and the fact that I was once an editor with Sydney’s Daily Telegraph made me lots and lots of ongoing contacts. What I don’t know, I can find out in a hurry. It’s all built up by being in the business for many years. Nothing is hard to find out.

What attracts you to writing about true crime?
There’s no real answer to that. It’s just something that I do and I have become very good at it. The same as writing about big game fishing or being on the radio. It’s just something that I do. I must admit that I’m just about burnt out with it though and it’s almost time to move on to something new. There comes a time when you become sick of decapitations, disembowelment, rape, child murder and necrophilia. There’s got to be more to life than this.

Has researching and writing about such horrible crimes affected your outlook on life and society?
It did at first. In fact when I was writing Australia’s Serial Killers; The Definitive History of Serial Multicide in Australia I began plotting serial murders in my head and went to see a psychiatrist who assured me that there was nothing wrong with me, given the nature of my work. Since then I have taught myself to be indifferent to it and just report the facts and get on with it. That doesn’t mean that I don’t feel for the victims and their families, it’s just that I don’t get emotionally involved.  

Why do you think there is such a fascination for true crime from the reading and TV-watching public?
You can thank the likes of DNA and CSI for that. It’s a whole new world of policing out there and people who would never normally be interested are getting off on the science of it. And with it came the nostalgia of crime, cases such as the Thorne Kidnapping in 1960 and the famous crimes of the 60s, 70s and 1980s as seen in CI Australia.

Your books feature the most notorious Australian crimes. Which crime(s) were the most difficult to write or affected you the most?
The murder of Anita Cobby who was raped and eventually decapitated by five men was very difficult to report. The abduction, rape, torture and murder of Mrs Virginia Morse by two ex-convicts is among the worst of the worst as is the abduction, rape and murder of Janine Balding by three men. Also the far too many child murders of which the murder of Sheree Beasley by church elder Robert Arthur Selby Lowe, is among the worst. But there is no best or worst in murder. To each of the families and loved ones left behind, their loss is always the worst.    

You’ve written four volumes of the ‘Never to be Released’ series, plus several other true crime novels. What’s next on your writing agenda?
A novel about a serial killer who specialises in murdering editors who ask too many questions.