The Needle in the Heart Murder: The Mysterious Death of Dr Yeates.

Written by Candace Sutton. Allen & Unwin. RRP: $29.95.

On a hot September night in 1960, Dr James Yeates was beaten about the face and head and stabbed through the heart with a hypodermic syringe at his Vaucluse home. Star detective of the time, Ray Kelly, was seconded to the ensuing murder inquiry. Medical investigators decided that only a doctor could have administered the puncture wound through the wall of Yeates’s heart – and the abnormal amount of adrenaline found in the tissue.

Macquarie Street’s finest, including Dr Eric Hedberg, were lined up for questioning. Stories emerged of Yeates’s wife Diana’s alleged affair with him and of Dr Hedberg’s first wife, Joyce, purportedly fearing she was being poisoned. Joyce Hedberg died five months before Dr Yeates. The inquest was sensational. But no one was ever charged with this murder. In May 1964, Eric Hedberg and Diana Yeates married. The unsolved Yeates Case has been one the most enduringly mysterious murders in the annals of Australian crime.

Henry Porter, Empire State. Orion / Allen & Unwin. RRP: $29.95

The head of the US National Security Agency is assassinated in a spectacular set piece killing at Heathrow airport, London. A series of murders and violent incidents takes place around the globe. The quest to find the link between these apparently random events is pursued by Robert Harland – hero of Porter’s previous, highly acclaimed novel A Spy’s Life – as he performs a dual role for the UN and the British secret intelligence service, MI6. This true-to-life thriller explores our frightening post-9/11 world, in which international agencies such as the CIA give no quarter in hunting down suspected terrorists.

Jean-François Revel, Anti-Americanism. Encounter Books (www.encounterbooks.com).

Soon after the 9/11 attack on the United States, the early outpouring of sympathy from around the world began giving way to blame. In many countries, especially France, it was said that the Americans must somehow have brought this violence upon themselves. The US was a “cowboy” nation unwilling to abide by the will of the United Nations and bent on taking the law into its own hands.

Angered by the increasingly shrill accusations made against the US, the distinguished French writer, Jean-François Revel, has come to America’s defence in this biting and erudite book. Revel probes the origins of the notion that America is the source of all evil: imperialistic, greedy and ruthlessly competitive—the “hyperpower” whose riches are supposedly acquired at the price of Third World impoverishment. As far as America’s “unilateralism” is concerned, Revel shows that the US is forced to act alone because Europe has failed repeatedly to act in the cause of collective security. As far as America’s sins of “globalization” are concerned, Revel shows that the developing countries of the world want more, not less, access to rich markets and corporate investment.

Revel – once called “the George Orwell of France” – is the author of several trenchant books over the last 30 years, including The Totalitarian Temptation (1977) and How Democracies Perish (1985).

J. Martin Rochester, Class Warfare: Besieged Schools, Bewildered Parents, Betrayed Kids and the Attack on Excellence. Encounter Books (www.encounterbooks.com).

This important book – which is highly relevant for Australia – offers a first-hand account of the Great American Education War being waged from coast to coast, including the reading wars, maths wars, testing wars, and other schoolyard scuffles.

Martin Rochester – a college professor and concerned parent – shows how trendy educational theories have steamrolled parent resistance in promoting disasters such as whole-language, fuzzy maths, multiple intelligences theory, teacher-as-coach, the therapeutic classroom, and all the other latest fads found in today’s schools. Rochester criticizes “progressive” educators who continue to assault the techniques of traditional schooling (ability-grouping, grades, homework, etc), allow non-academic diversions to crowd out academic study, and subordinate a commitment to excellence to an obsession with “equity”.

Graeme Blundell, King: The Life and Comedy of Graham Kennedy. Macmillan Australia. RRP: $30.

Graham Kennedy, the King of Comedy, reigned over Australian television for 40 years as talk-show host, game-show presenter and iconoclastic jester. He went from radio to become the shining light of Australian TV, hosting In Melbourne Tonight, Blankety Blanks and Coast to Coast. Looking for a new challenge, Kennedy moved into films and starred in Don’s Party and The Club among others.

Graeme Blundell elegantly traces the career of the star from working-class Melbourne, who made an unforgettable impact on Australian television with his disrespectful buffoonery, then mysteriously disappeared into the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.

Geoffrey Blainey, Black Kettle and Full Moon: Daily Life in a Vanished Australia. Viking / Penguin hardback. RRP: $45.00

In Black Kettle and Full Moon, distinguished historian and master story-teller Geoffrey Blainey takes us on another absorbing journey – a guided tour of a vanished Australia. Covering the years from the first gold rush to World War I, Blainey paints a fascinating picture of how our forebears lived – in the bush, in towns and cities, at sea and far inland. He looks at a host of aspects of daily life, from billy-cans to brass bands, from ice-making to etiquette, from pipes to pubs. Professor Blainey’s evocative text is further brought alive through contemporary illustrations by artists such as Julian Ashton.

Peter Brune, A Bastard of a Place: Australians in Papua. Allen & Unwin Australia. RRP: $49.95

Adelaide-based Peter Brune (Those Ragged Bloody Heroes, The Spell Broken and We Band of Brothers) is a leading authority on the Australian campaigns in New Guinea in World War II. In this latest book, he gives readers the final, all-encompassing story of the five battles that changed Australia forever: Kokoda, Milne Bay, Gona, Buna and Sanananda. His compelling narrative, illustrated with photos and maps, is the result of hundreds of his interviews with the soldiers of these battles, a meticulous examination of the official records, and a recent tour of the battle grounds. This is no mere military history, but an engaging account of the men who triumphed against the odds, and a moving insight into the very soul of a young nation, essentially left to its own devices and fighting for its very life.

Brune also reveals the inside story of how Generals MacArthur and Blamey sacrificed many of the senior Australian field commanders as scapegoats to protect their own positions, and assisted in the making of false legends and outright lies about the men who fought the battles.

Special Book Offer

For your chance to win a copy of either Candace Sutton’s The Needle in the Heart Murder or Henry Porter’s Empire State, put your details and choice of book on the back of an envelope and send it to Book Comp, SA Police Journal (168).