The Snowtown Murders is a particularly fascinating case for several reasons, firstly because it’s the serial murder case in Australia with the highest body count, but also because serial killers are almost invariably solitary actors, and the Snowtown Murders were committed by what amounted to a small gang, under the leadership of John Bunting.
However, this book really doesn’t give you any more information than you can pick up from one of the several TV documentaries on the case. It’s apparent that the author isn’t from Australia, getting some basic geographical facts wrong - Murray Bridge is 70km from Adelaide, not an ‘eastern suburb’ - and to be honest, I feel like he just pulled this book together after watching those documentaries and summarizing them. There are no reports from the trials. No interviews with the detectives who investigated the case, the psychologists who have studied the Snowtown gang since. Nothing you can’t pick up from Wikipedia, frankly, and therefore I wouldn’t waste your time on this book. Two stars.
