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Suburban Nightmare: Australian True Crime Stories
Think nothing ever happens where you live?
Suburban Nightmare is a collection of stories that are hard to believe, except they really happened – and all in the streets and homes of the Australia many of us know and live. The suburbs.
These cases range from recent murders to some historical stories that will shock and surprise.
Emily Webb, one of Australia’s best young true crime writers, probes the black underbelly of our towns and suburbs, and exposes the darkness at the heart of Australian life.
Suburban Nightmare is a collection of stories that are hard to believe, except they really happened – and all in the streets and homes of the Australia many of us know and live. The suburbs.
These cases range from recent murders to some historical stories that will shock and surprise.
Emily Webb, one of Australia’s best young true crime writers, probes the black underbelly of our towns and suburbs, and exposes the darkness at the heart of Australian life.
256 pages, Paperback
Published August 1, 2016
16 people are currently reading
194 people want to read
About the author
Emily Webb
21 books68 followersEmily Webb is a Melbourne-based journalist and podcaster.
She lives in suburbia with her husband and two children.
She lives in suburbia with her husband and two children.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 3, 2016
*4.5 stars
Respected Australian journalist and passionate true crime writer Emily Webb, examines a collection of explosive real-life stories involving crimes committed in our everyday homes and backyards. Suburban Nightmare marks the release of author Emily Webb’s third true crime book. It is genre that Webb clearly knows inside out. Emily Webb’s passion and understanding for her genre, Australian true crime, shines through the pages of this very gripping and chill to the bone collection of stories.
Suburban Nightmare is comprised of twenty eight Australian true crime stories. Each chapter is devoted to a particular story, providing a good balance of insight, thorough research and a compelling style of narration on behalf of Webb. Webb varies her range of crime stories and locales, which makes this book all the more interesting to the reader. Each story is tied together by the link of these crimes occurring in our backyards, which is a chilling thought. In Suburban Nightmare, Webb combines unsolved crimes with solved crimes. She moves from recent day crimes, through to fascinating historical cases. She looks at randomly chosen crimes, to family based crimes, through to tales of love gone tragically wrong. Webb also draws out attention to the purely bizarre and heartbreaking, such as the case of the senseless slaughter of many innocent animals at an Adelaide zoo. No matter what the case or subject matter, Webb treats each individual case with both sensitivity and objective storytelling.
With her third true crime novel under her belt and hopefully many more planned in the future, Emily Webb has proven her ability to write high quality true crime, from an Australian perspective. True crime fans will delight in this compelling story collection.
This review also appears on my blog: https://mrsbbookreviews.wordpress.com...
Respected Australian journalist and passionate true crime writer Emily Webb, examines a collection of explosive real-life stories involving crimes committed in our everyday homes and backyards. Suburban Nightmare marks the release of author Emily Webb’s third true crime book. It is genre that Webb clearly knows inside out. Emily Webb’s passion and understanding for her genre, Australian true crime, shines through the pages of this very gripping and chill to the bone collection of stories.
Suburban Nightmare is comprised of twenty eight Australian true crime stories. Each chapter is devoted to a particular story, providing a good balance of insight, thorough research and a compelling style of narration on behalf of Webb. Webb varies her range of crime stories and locales, which makes this book all the more interesting to the reader. Each story is tied together by the link of these crimes occurring in our backyards, which is a chilling thought. In Suburban Nightmare, Webb combines unsolved crimes with solved crimes. She moves from recent day crimes, through to fascinating historical cases. She looks at randomly chosen crimes, to family based crimes, through to tales of love gone tragically wrong. Webb also draws out attention to the purely bizarre and heartbreaking, such as the case of the senseless slaughter of many innocent animals at an Adelaide zoo. No matter what the case or subject matter, Webb treats each individual case with both sensitivity and objective storytelling.
With her third true crime novel under her belt and hopefully many more planned in the future, Emily Webb has proven her ability to write high quality true crime, from an Australian perspective. True crime fans will delight in this compelling story collection.
This review also appears on my blog: https://mrsbbookreviews.wordpress.com...
November 25, 2016
Another excellent and varied collection of Australian true crime stories.
I love the way Webb mixes in old and new/known and unknown cases for the true crime readers!
Another great book from Webb.. well done!
I love the way Webb mixes in old and new/known and unknown cases for the true crime readers!
Another great book from Webb.. well done!
February 23, 2017
Another fantastic collection of true crime. Some I had heard of others were new to me. Loved how each story wax only few pages long.
March 22, 2017
Emily Webb is such a great author. I've enjoyed all of her books but this one is my favourite (I'm possibly biased as my blog is mentioned). Definitely scary to see the horror that occurs in your own backyard
June 19, 2017
“Suburban Nightmare” struck me as a largely pointless book, of interest largely to voyeuristic people without much intellectual curiosity.
The book is a compilation of the details of various horrific crimes, mostly murders, committed in the suburbs of Australia. The information contained appears to be largely drawn from contemporary newspaper reports and court reports – Webb does not seem to have done any extra research into the details of most cases. She makes little to no effort to explore the motivations of the criminals; there is little discussion of the impact on the victims.
In short, Webb brings nothing new to any of these cases, and there is little depth to any of the accounts. It is not clear what she hopes to achieve with this plain recounting of the cases. In the instance of one or two cases which are still unsolved, perhaps she and the survivors hope that it will prompt someone to come forward with new information. Even here, however, the details are scant and seem unlikely to jog anyone’s memory.
This is reasonably well written, and if you want to peek at the horrors people can inflict on others, this will give you a glimpse, without being too challenging. However, I found this emotionally unaffecting, and intellectually unchallenging. There was no driving narrative to link these cases together, and as noted, the book overall seems to have very little point.
The book is a compilation of the details of various horrific crimes, mostly murders, committed in the suburbs of Australia. The information contained appears to be largely drawn from contemporary newspaper reports and court reports – Webb does not seem to have done any extra research into the details of most cases. She makes little to no effort to explore the motivations of the criminals; there is little discussion of the impact on the victims.
In short, Webb brings nothing new to any of these cases, and there is little depth to any of the accounts. It is not clear what she hopes to achieve with this plain recounting of the cases. In the instance of one or two cases which are still unsolved, perhaps she and the survivors hope that it will prompt someone to come forward with new information. Even here, however, the details are scant and seem unlikely to jog anyone’s memory.
This is reasonably well written, and if you want to peek at the horrors people can inflict on others, this will give you a glimpse, without being too challenging. However, I found this emotionally unaffecting, and intellectually unchallenging. There was no driving narrative to link these cases together, and as noted, the book overall seems to have very little point.
December 14, 2016
First of all, I live in the US, so most of these true crime stories were completely unfamiliar to me. But as I was reading them, I was thinking, everyone should know the names of these lost souls! There were more than 25 short stories. I read them all in one sitting. Then before I went to bed, I went to check to make sure the front door was locked, and that my children were all in their beds, safe and sound. Emily Webb's book was well-written, well-edited, and respectful of the dead. She did not glorify in the blood, when there was blood. I think just about anyone who enjoys reading true crime would enjoy this book. That's why i recommend it.
February 8, 2017
Totally engrossing read for true crime buffs. Read it in a day because I coudn't put it down till I finished it.
December 23, 2023
I dunno what I was expecting here, I've read enough of these that I should know better. Well enough written, well enough narrated, but it never really 'got me'. The old stories I guess have no relevance, and the newer ones... well, too short to get me in, but by the same token, not enough there for more.
March 29, 2020
An engrossing and varied collection of stories; many of them would have been worth a book on their own.
November 23, 2020
This was an easy and interesting read. Each short chapter is a different case, so don't expect in-depth analysis of each.
January 15, 2025
Brief accounts of true crime in Australian suburbs, from the 40s to the 2000s. Some solved, some unsolved.
Read
March 24, 2017Thorough investigations into some of the lesser known Australian major crimes. Well researched and written.
September 1, 2016
An interesting blend of crimes from many years ago and some from more recent times, some solved and others still unsolved. Each crime is reviewed with the facts from records, newspapers of the day etc and is written like an article. It is obvious that the author is/was a journalist and that suits this style of book. Thank you to The Reading Room for this copy.
August 13, 2016
A chilling collection of true crime stories from the dark hidden parts of the Australian suburbs.
August 18, 2016
Great read if you like true crime . The author had great respect for the families involved in these crimes / murders .
September 30, 2025
Very good easy reading of many different crimes. Some of course had a great deal of media coverage others not so much. I would not hesitate to read another book on true crime by this author.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews