The Killing Season Uncut

Australians came to the ABC's The Killing Season in droves, their fascination with the brutal Rudd-Gillard struggle as enduring as the saga itself. This is the book that brings you the uncut version of The Killing Season, taking you behind the cameras to reveal the untold stories and candid moments that didn't go to air. For the first time a more complete version of the truth is revealed.

Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard dominate the drama as they strain to claim the narrative of Labor's years in power. Rudd gives his painful account of the period and recalls in vivid detail the events of losing the prime ministership. Gillard is frank and unsparing of her colleagues.

More than a hundred people were interviewed for The Killing Season—ministers, backbenchers, staffers, party officials, pollsters and public servants—recording their graphic accounts of the public and private events that made the Rudd and Gillard governments and then brought them undone. It is a damning portrait of a party at war with itself—of the personal rivalries and bitter defeats that have come to define the Rudd-Gillard era.

It is also a remarkable insight into the work of Sarah Ferguson, one of Australia's top journalists.

Sarah Ferguson is an ABC journalist. In the same year that she worked on The Killing Season, she also wrote and presented Hitting Home, the landmark series on domestic violence. She has presented the ABC's 7.30 and worked as a journalist on Four Corners, where she won four Walkleys-including the Gold Walkley in 2011 for 'A Bloody Business'-the Melbourne Press Club Gold Quill Award, four Logies for most outstanding public affairs report, as well as the George Munster Award for Independent Journalism and the Queensland Premier's Literary Award.

Patricia Drum has been a researcher for the ABC's Four Corners and Media Watch, and a producer at 7.30. She is also a solicitor and has worked in federal politics as an adviser to Labor MP Maxine McKew. Patricia was a researcher on the ABC's documentary series The Killing Season.