This is the biggest happening in the underworld since Jackie Twist got the Frog back in '58. This is going to unleash merry hell, son . . .'

In 2003 Adam Shand, until then a financial journalist, naively set out to unravel Melbourne's bloody gangland wars. A few months' research, a guaranteed cover story. But his foray into the underworld took him deeper than that. Before long, he found himself counted as a friend by those who sometimes ended friendships with a hail of bullets.

Big Shots takes the reader into the heart of the city's multi-billion dollar 'disorganised crime' scene, as Shand meets key figures and suspects, including Carl and Roberta Williams, Mick Gatto, and many others. He discovers the human drama behind the brutal slayings that were splashed across the front pages, and in the process comes to question his objectivity. And even whether he is being used to further the players' murderous ends.