The only good thing about a dose of the lurgy is a spot of reading catching up, although this spot wasn't nearly as productive as I would normally like (okay so the lurgy was a bit more dramatic than I'd normally like as well)... but this is one of the books that I picked up at the recent Crime & Justice Festival, so I took the opportunity to finish it off.
From the Blurb:
Few names in Australian criminal history are as evocative as the Painters and Dockers. They were a trade union gone bad. From their outset, early in the twentieth century, they attracted more than their fair share of nefarious waterfront characters, and by the 1960s, 70s and 80s leading elements of the union had become a heavy criminal fraternity of some of the most violent and dangerous men in Australia. Standover, robbery, smuggling, gambling, prostitution and drugs were the daily trade of the Painters and Dockers, and turf wars and old scores were often settled with the lethal blast of a sawn-off shotgun.