Penguin Books Australia

Unlikely crime boss, serial killer, prison snitch, suburban boy turned bad, cult hero – who was the real Carl Williams?

When the 'baby-faced killer' met his shocking end in Barwon Prison's maximum-security unit, he left in his wake a trail of brutal murders, an underworld in flames, a police service stinking of corruption, and a broken family. How could a bogan boy from Broadmeadows, underestimated by all as lazy and stupid, have risen to the top of Melbourne's crime scene and created such widespread havoc?

Bestselling author Adam Shand takes us into Carl's world: the family poverty that made him hungry for success at any cost, the shifting sands of allegiances within the rival crime factions, and the fear, greed and thirst for revenge that drove him to murder. From Williams' early forays into the drug trade, the gunshot wound to the stomach that sparked a bloody gangland war, through to the car-crash fascination of his relationship with Roberta, Shand shows us the man behind the cocky grin, and examines how and why he came to his grisly end.