historical

Grave Tales: Scenic Rim & Surrounds, Qld visits the many public and private cemeteries in Queensland's Scenic Rim and tells of the everyday people who - willingly or unwillingly – were participants in events that made local and national headlines. They may have lived in the same suburbs, streets, and even the same houses as exist now, or finished their days in this beautiful area. These stories hint at our history - tales of unsolved murders, love lost, mystery, tragedy, early settlement, health epidemics, scandal and sacrifice. Grave Tales reveals more than the headstone can ever convey by tracing the tumultuous journeys that lead to these final resting places.

Miss Matilda Hayward has a nose for a story which serves her well as a writer for the Women’s Journal newspaper. Her beau, Detective Thomas Ashdown, is not quite as enthusiastic about her role. When Matilda’s brother, Elijah, takes up a doctor’s position at the Asylum for the Insane, she volunteers, seeking more life experience to improve her writing. Joined by her illustrator friend, Miss Georgina Urry, the two ladies are thrust into the mystery of several strange asylum deaths as patients believe they can fly. When Thomas is sent to investigate, their worlds collide. Now the race is on to find the sinister threat dwelling inside the dark and gloomy walls of the asylum. There is secrecy, danger, and love afoot!

In the ninth volume in the exciting Grave Tales series, journalists Helen Goltz and Chris Adams visit Tasmanian cemeteries to unearth some great tales.

Stories include:

• • Mark Jeffrey: a Port Arthur prisoner who lived with the 1100 or so deceased residents on the Isle of the Dead and should have been buried there…
  • Sylvia McArthur: a girl who died young but made her mark documenting in letters to a newspaper’s children’s page what life was like in the mining towns.
  • Frederick Thompson: was the last man hanged in Tasmania. His crime, the murder of young, Eveline Mary Maughan. He claimed his innocence to the end.
  • Roy Cazaly: footy fans still sing the song about him, Up There Cazaly, but the champion moved to Tasmania where his life took him on a different track.
  • John Joseph Sweeney: a Tasmanian soldier who joined the NZ forces as a tunneller, planting explosives under German trenches, but met a terrible fate.
  • The Neva: the female convict ship that carried over 200 passengers and crew, but when it hit a reef, it was not women and children first.
  • Thomas Nevin may have created the first mugshots in Tasmania, capturing poignant images of men who ended their days on Tasmania’s gallows.
  • Martin Cash: has been described as a rarity – a bushranger who lived to retire.

… And 10 more stories in this volume.