Like the Beaumont children and the Azaria Chamberlain cases before it, the backpacker murder case in Belanglo State Forest has entered Australian criminal folklore. Seven young people, most of them foreigners backpacking around Australia, brutally murdered, their remains uncovered in 1992 and 1993. It would take scores of police over three years, countless hours of forensic investigation, thousands of false leads and a few precious clues to charge and convict Ivan Milat for their horrific deaths. This is the definitive work on Ivan Milat, his family and the murders. Almost four years in the making, informed by exclusive interviews with members of the Milat family, key police investigators and Crown lawyers, this book reveals a family culture so bizarre it would lead inexorably to murder. It also scrutinises the police investigation – its remarkable success and failures, the dramatic turning point and the backbiting and bitterness that followed Milat's arrest. Thought-provoking, totally unsalacious and an exploration of the darker side of Australian life as a whole. Photographic illustrations.