Author(s): John Kerr

BABIES & TODDLERS

We think of a human life as priceless beyond measure, but there are men among us who will end a life for a fistful of dollars. These men are the hit men, striking a contract with someone who has a target and the cash. In a world of ever-increasing outsourcing, contract killing has become 'the white middle class way of murder'. The Hit Men tells the stories of some of Australia's most ruthless contract killers - their plots, accomplices, victims, crimes and punishments and of the people who saw fit to employ them. John Kerr dissects a parade of hits, from the days of Sydney's razor gangs in the 1930s to more modern times, taking a fresh look on the way at the man they called rent-a-kill - Christopher Dale Flannery. Kerr traces the tragic path of Dennis Allen's hired Red Rat, tells of the bungled 'Are you Les?' hit, and examines the crimes that led to a mother's death on a bed beside her six-year-old son. He gives unflinching accounts of a man who killed his granny, wives who shopped for their husband's killers, and cashed-up criminals who called in favours to arrange the deaths of their enemies. A chilling account of how quickly ordinary people can turn to extreme violence to get what they want.