PICK OF THE WEEK
The Ruby Princess
Duncan McNab, Macmillan, $34.99

The signs were bad from the start when the Ruby Princess approached Circular Quay on March 19 last year. But despite confusing, contradictory reports and serious suspicions about the health of passengers and unusual exchanges between the ship and port authorities (even the pilot was advised to “treat the vessel with suspected caution”), the ship was given clearance to dock and 2700 passengers disembarked. As Duncan McNab says in this readable, forensic dissection of the fiasco that followed, “a viral bomb had just detonated”. Passengers poured into the city, took trains and taxis home – and a significant number from overseas took planes back to the US, Canada and Britain. A thoroughly researched anatomy of a disaster – in all its complexity - that could have been worse.

Secret & Special
Will Davies, Vintage, $34.99

Following the formation of Special Operations Executive in Britain early in WWII, Australia, with the help of SOE members, formed the Z Special Unit – the forerunners of the SAS. Their task was to go behind Japanese lines and create havoc and, with varying degrees of success, that’s what they did. Will Davies’ account of their secret history (information was withheld for decades) and their explosive activities reads like a TV doco in-waiting. His description of the first daringly successful raid on Singapore (six men blew up seven ships and got home safely) is gripping. The same is true of a disastrous raid, only six weeks before war’s end, when the raiders were betrayed by locals and all killed. A tale of deadly missions and steely nerves, engagingly told.

Argyle
Stuart Kells, MUP, $34.99

When we think of diamond mining most people usually think of South Africa and De Beers, but for four decades one of the largest diamond-producing mines in the world was the Argyle in the Kimberley. Stuart Kells’ history of this venture goes back to the 1970s when a team led by businessman Ewen Tyler, and for once including geologists, started testing to see if the area had diamonds. Kells establishes, in often entertaining writing, that there were all sorts of barriers to overcome in order to make the project work – especially convincing overseas interests. It’s a complex tale that throws up serious issues, most notably the destructive effect of mines on sacred Indigenous sites, Kells observing “Indigenous fears about site protection around Argyle were well founded”.

The Husband Poisoner
Tanya Bretherton, Hachette. $32.99