Peter Doyle (4) (1951–)

This is going to sound like one very weird review - but I just can't figure out how to explain the effect of CROOKS LIKE US by Peter Doyle without using words like fascinating, haunting, astounding, beautiful and absolutely and utterly mesmerising.

This book is a fascinating compilation of photographs and stories from the 1920's and 30's (or thereabouts) in Sydney. During this period for some reason, police in Sydney Central Station started taking photos of people who passed through. Many of show more them are between arrest and charge, and certainly before court or any other proceedings. To go along with the photographs Doyle has, where possible, matched up a little of each person's story - the charge, their ongoing record, or more poignantly - found nothing more about the person whose image becomes even more evocative.

The photographs themselves are simply startling. Stark, frequently surprising, relaxed or guarded, the images of these people are astounding. Standing or seated, usually in a pair of photos, these images show people in facial close-up and then full-length. The clarity of these images is remarkable, and the detail they show, from the faces of the subjects, through to their clothes, accessories, their shoes and their expressions is really something to behold. Many of the photographs are haunting - the past staring the present and future straight in the eye.

There are a few odd names that came to mean more in criminal notoriety - Chow Hayes for example, but in the main these are mostly unknown criminals, involved in all sorts of criminal activities. Conmen, conwomen, thieves, breakers, receivers, perjurers, escapees, pickpockets, drug dealers, drug users, murderers, razor men, tricksters - many of the details of their crimes were tracked down by Doyle - from the sad, and minor through to those starting out on a more dedicated life of crime. Some of the inscriptions are particularly evocative: "O'Donogue's Trainees" as the author puts it, ripe with suggestions. Hazel McGuiness, charged alongside her mother who the police referred to as "the vilest creature I have seen in my whole 20 years experience", got the slightly kinder observation of "she had scarcely had a chance in life, raised as she was in an atmosphere of dope and immorality". Her mother's photograph on one page, the daugher on the following is a particularly poignant juxtaposition.

There are also moments of some humour, possible after this long period of time - including some absolutely hilarious defences or attempts at explaining away the inexplicable. There's also no way you could ever accuse people of political correctness in those days - so many of the nicknames are going to make current-day readers cringe just a little bit.

But what will stay with you is the images of those people - so many of them will have connections reaching forward into the current day, in these faces there is so much stark and real humanity that it's just breathtaking. The insolence of some, the terror in the eyes of others. The fake bravado, the beautiful and the ugly, the sheer madness, the sly, embarrassed, defiant or distressed, the nonchalant and the frightened.

These images, and the stories of the people that go with them will stay with me for a long-time and I know I will be drawn back to the book over and over again. It's a simply breathtaking record of a period of time, and a set of people that calls out across the years in a way that is absolutely and utterly mesmerising.

CROOKS LIKE US was shortlisted in the True Crime section of the 2010 Ned Kelly Awards. show less

This book comprises a small but careful sample from a vast collection of forensic photographs, taken in Sydney, Australia between 1912 and 1960. The book has several text essays complementing this fine collection of approximately 200 black and white photographs. The photos provide an insight to the Sydney scene from the twenties, through the depression and Second World War to the immediate post-war era. While the emphasis was on the presentation of evidence, these images provide a great show more social document, ranging from the hard men staring back at the police camera lens to the bereft surroundings of desperate victims. The original photographers have chosen well what they cared to record, apparently placing evidence in context. Pictures of on-lookers communicate the timbre of the time as much as photos of victims, accidents, suspects and scenes of crime. The photos have been reproduced from original negatives, and the quality is a testament to the original processing and modern curatorial work. Not an enjoyable book, by virture of the subject matter, but a very fine social document. Highly recommended. show less

I really wanted to like this more, but it wore me down. The plot is clever and there are two books in one here (part of the plot). So two voices to contend with, which I didn't mind. But in the second half of the book, the main character plays his cards so close to his chest that I lost track of the plan. It all comes together in the end satisfactorily, but en route, I got a bit tired. Quite a writer, though!

* 30/12/2010 as an aside, anyone catch the new tv advertisement for "Underbelly" on Channel 9 tonight. The photograph on the cover of this book was spliced in amongst scenes from the new upcoming series. A fourth Underbelly series to screen in 2011 promises to lift the lid on the birth of organised crime in Australia.

Based in Sydney in the roaring 1920s, Underbelly Razor tells the story of the bloody battle between "vice queens" Tilly Devine and her rival Kate Leigh. show more
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The photographs in this book were mainly taken in the cells at Darlinghurst Police Station in Forbes Street. (see it here).
http://sydney-city.blogspot.com/2010/05/darlinghurst-police-station.html
(now it's a community health centre - am glad they didn't pull it down it's listed as an historic building). It's opposite the National Art School which was once Sydney's original goal.

The images are beautiful in an austere sort of way and depict the people of the times in their own clothing. They were asked to pose however they liked apparently unlike modern day police photographs so you can sense the real character of the person.

This is on my wish list because I love photography, but also have a weird bittersweet association with the Darlinghust Police Station. No not that...My first ever dog was a Police Dog from Darlinghurst Police Station. Susie - a doberman but she had a tendency to wander and reluctantly they had to retire her. Somehow my father heard about it and took me to meet her - I was 7 or 8 and remember walking though the building past some of the cells to get to the kennels out the back. The cells in my memory looked like the cells in the photographs in this book. Later I was to go to the National Art School (the old goal across the road) and recall the inside of the station with some fondness. Both the station and Goal buildings particularly are eerie, and supposedly haunted - they did hang people there. Something just leaks out of the stonework & you shiver though I never saw any ghosts while there. The bitter part is later I applied for the job of police photographer at the same station and I was rejected because I was female. Equal rights wasn't in force then - I'd read the Female Eunuch by Greer but I was ahead of my times.. Still I want the book. show less