Dapin, Mark: Public Enemies: Russell “Mad Dog” Cox, Ray Denning and the Golden Age of Armed Robbery

Mark Dapin

Public Enemies: Russell “Mad Dog” Cox, Ray Denning and the Golden Age of Armed Robbery, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2020; electronic version available

In the Australia of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, armed robbers were the top of the criminal food chain. Their dash and violence were celebrated, and men like Russell “Mad Dog” Cox and Ray Denning were household names long before Underbelly established Melbourne’s gangland thugs as celebrities.

Cox and Denning were once Australian Public Enemies Number One and Two. Both were handsome, charismatic bandits who refused to bow to authority. Both were classified as “intractable” in prison, and both escaped. Cox was the only man to escape from Katingal, Australia’s only ‘escape-proof’ jail. Soon after he broke out, he tried to break in again and rescue his mates. (blurb)

The book is reviewed for Honest History by John Myrtle. Opening chapter. The author on the book. Blue Wolf Reviews (Nan Van Dissell). BookdOut review (Shelley Rae).

Other books by Mark Dapin include Australia’s Vietnam: Myth vs History and The Nashos’ War, and he contributed a chapter to The Honest History Book, ‘ “We too were Anzacs”: were Vietnam veterans ever truly excluded from the Anzac tradition?’.

 

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