![]() ![]() Arson, wrote Henry Lawson, expresses a malice 'terrifying to those who have seen what it is capable of. Bushfire is one of Australia's deepest anxieties, never more so than when deliberately lit. What it has done, what it has meant, what it might yet do. It is the story not only of this fire - how it happened, the people who died, the aftermath for the community - but of fire in this country. The Arsonist tells a remarkable detective story, as the police close in on someone they believe to be a cunning offender and a puzzling psychological story, as defence lawyers seek to understand the motives of a man who, they claimed, was a na�f that had accidentally dropped a cigarette. But the detectives soon found themselves on the trail of a man they didn't know. ![]() Here, in the Latrobe Valley, where Victoria's electricity is generated, and the rates of unemployment, crime and domestic abuse are the highest in the state, more than thirty people were known to police as firebugs. Eleven people had just been killed and hundreds made homeless. After Black Saturday, a February 2009 day marked by 47 degree heat and firestorms, arson squad detectives arrived at a plantation on the edge of a 26,000-hectare burn site. The Arsonist takes readers inside the hunt for a fire-lighter. ![]()
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May 2023
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