One Down, One Missing: Inside the Hunt for the Killers of Silk & Miller
Australian History True Crime Criminology Biography & Memoir Police Procedural Detective Non-Fiction Cold Case Investigation
First-edition paperback of the 2003 true-crime classic One Down, One Missing: Inside the Hunt for the Killers of Silk & Miller remains the definitive insider account of Australia’s most haunting police manhunt. Written by Detective Senior Constable Joe D’Alo—who lived the investigation—and cross-word maestro David Astle, this 291-page narrative puts you in the passenger seat of the Homicide squad car as detectives pursue the callous killers of two young officers gunned down in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges. Colour photo plates, many never reprinted in later releases, show crime-scene evidence, ballistic maps and the faces that dominated nightly news bulletins, giving collectors and students of criminology a vivid visual archive.
What elevates this copy above later reprints is its untouched first-edition status: no prior owner names, no ex-libris stamps, just the original 2003 Hardie Grant text block that true-crime hunters scour second-hand shops to find. A couple of lightly dog-eared corners are the only reminders that this book has been read, not abused, and they scarcely distract from the crisp pages and tight spine. For VCE Legal Studies, university criminology courses, or arm-chair detectives who devour Australian cold-case histories, owning the first release guarantees you’re referencing the unedited testimony that later paperbacks trimmed for space.
Collectors prize One Down, One Missing because it captures a pivotal moment in Australian policing—the birth of major task-force methodology and nationwide DNA cross-matching—told by the man who helped write the procedural playbook. Keywords such as “Silk & Miller manhunt”, “Victorian Homicide true first edition”, and “Australian police memoir” consistently drive strong resale demand, making this an affordable yet appreciating piece of Antipodean crime history. Secure it now and you hold the raw, first-hand story that television dramatisations still try to match.
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