Justice in Kelly Country: The Story of the Cop Who Hunted Australia?s Most Notorious Bushrangers

Strahan, Lachlan

ISBN 10: 1922979562 / ISBN 13: 9781922979568

Published by Monash University Publishing, 2024

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 18404474783

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Justice in Kelly Country: The Story of the Cop Who Hunted Australia?s Most Notorious Bushrangers
• Publisher: Monash University Publishing
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1922979562
• ISBN 13: 9781922979568
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Partway through the Jerilderie Letter, Ned Kelly accused Senior Constable Anthony Strahan of threatening to shoot him ‘like a dog’. Those few fateful words have ricocheted through Australian history. Many have blamed Anthony Strahan for the turmoil and bloodshed that unfolded during the Kelly Outbreak. For, two days after Anthony reputedly made his threat, Ned and his gang shot dead three policemen at Stringybark Creek. Ned’s reason for opening fire? He thought one of the cops was Anthony.

Lachlan Strahan, Anthony’s great-great-grandson, grew up believing Ned Kelly was a heroic outlaw and Anthony the ruthless cop who pursued him. Yet as he combed through letters, police reports, court transcripts, newspaper articles and family histories, Lachlan pieced together a different story about the life of his ancestor – a fiery Irish immigrant who embodied the thin blue line in the bush for 32 years. Bent on justice, Anthony Strahan apprehended all manner of criminals, from brazen fraudsters and wily horse thieves to murderous husbands and the bushrangers who perpetrated the Wooragee Outrage. Yet his legacy was forever ensnared in the Kelly legend. Did Anthony utter those incendiary words about Ned? Whose version of history do we believe?

?

This is a tale about justice and retribution, morality and character, and making a life against the odds in a frontier society. It is also a story of inheritance: of the words passed from father to son, and the tales we choose to preserve and retell.

About the Author

Lachlan Strahan was the Australian High Commissioner to Solomon Islands. His first book, Australia’s China, has become one of the standard works on Australia–China relations. His second, Day of Reckoning, traced a series of crimes in Papua New Guinea after World War II and was shortlisted for the 2006 NSW Premier’s Australian History Prize.