'Who’s Who in the Zoo is a first-hand account of Domenico ‘Mick’ Cacciola’s life as a CIB and Special Branch detective over three decades. It captures the colour and grit of policing in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, which in its heyday was the sleazy epicentre of gambling and prostitution. Be transported to the pre- and post-Fitzgerald Inquiry eras: the crooked cops, the corrupt politicians, the stand-over men, the informants, the bank robbers, the drugs, the murderers, the crime and the violence.
'From making the arrest in Australia’s first televised siege (the hijacking of the Seaworld helicopter) to being expected to chauffeur Commissioner Terry Lewis’s mother around, Cacciola has done – and seen – it all. He held a gun to the head of a hitman contracted by the Griffith mafia to kill Cacciola himself and grasped desperately as a woman trying to suicide off a bridge slipped from his fingers. Always an honest cop, Cacciola was told to turn a blind eye to the gambling and prostitution rife in the Valley. He did as he was told, for a while anyway…
'Just as the bestselling Three Crooked Kings captured a nation’s interest, this in-your-face true-crime book will enthral.' (Publication blurb)
The Second Father : An Insider's Story of Cops, Crime and Corruption
St Lucia
:
University of Queensland Press
,
2009
Z1604810
2009
single work
autobiography
'In the 1950s Mick's family migrated to Australia from war-torn Italy and, in the Sicilian tradition, as the eldest of four boys, he was considered 'il secondo padre', the second father. Growing up with racism and discrimination compelled him into a life fighting for justice and honour.Domenico 'Mick' Cacciola open the lid on crime and corruption in Queensland in the '70s, writes Matthew Condon.
Domenico 'Mick' Cacciola open the lid on crime and corruption in Queensland in the '70s, writes Matthew Condon.
