The Dark Man

Sharon Evans Big Sky Publishing – Marketing & Communications www.bigskypublishing.com.au

Sydney author and avid historian Jason K. Foster’s new book Dark Man (Big Sky Publishing, RRP $29.99) is the amazing story of Frank Butler – Australia’s first serial killer and the international manhunt undertaken to bring him to trial and his death by hanging.

The Dark Man is the astonishing story of one of Australia’s first serial killers. It will take the reader not only on a journey into the mind of a killer but also the dedication of the detectives who hunt him across three continents. An amazing series of events set against the backdrop of late-nineteenth century Sydney. Foster reminds us that horrific crimes with seemingly no motive are not just a twenty-first century phenomenon.

In late 1896, the beautiful Blue Mountains in New South Wales became the hunting ground for Butler – a charismatic conman and notorious criminal. Motivated by the thrill of killing and a sick pleasure in outwitting his trusting victims, Butler makes his victims dig their own grave before shooting them and stealing their meagre possessions.

A serial murder was not something that happened or was acknowledged in the late late-nineteenth century Sydney. Butlers murders of three miners and the advent of the serial killer was a new scenario and the unusual nature of the crimes was something that created fear and incomprehension for the general public and investigators alike. After Blake was tried and hung his body displayed for all to see at the Darlinghurst Gaol – prominent scientists and criminologists of the era desperately wanted to have Butlers brains removed so that it could be examined; Many people feeling certain that a serial killers brain could not be the same as a normal human being. The minister of Justice denied this request.

Foster’s interest was initially raised when he discovered that the Blue Mountains – his childhood home – was in fact the hunting ground for Butler. However as a historian the idea of telling a story of a long-ago criminal, the social history that enveloped that time and also the many firsts that this story incorporates where also inspiring. Foster’s in-depth research unearthed newspaper articles and in-depth transcripts from the trial. The resulting historical narrative is a story that immerses you in the social history of the time and the man behind the crimes and those that hunted him.

The Dark Man vividly captures an incredible, yet largely forgotten, part of Australian criminal history.

Look inside The Dark Man here: