The Baby Farmers is well structured and exhaustively researched. Cossins writes with flair and demonstrates a keen eye for historical detail. The most engaging parts of the book are those that depict the voyeuristic public interest in the Makins’ crimes. Witness lines such as the following: ‘When the crowd realised that the police had unearthed the bones of an infant the excitement intensified with “men and boys nearly tumb[ling] off the roofs in their eagerness” to see …’

Notwithstanding the title, Cossins’s text is devoid of sensationalism. This is particularly commendable, given The Baby Farmers’ subject matter. The Makins’ crimes were undoubtedly horrific, and the author does not seek to pardon these acts. Rather, she explores the personal and socio-economic factors that drove the Makins into criminal activity. Cossins concedes that there are ‘large gaps in the decades of their lives in which they are invisible’. Their crimes saved the Makins from completely disappearing into history, as members of a ‘silent under-class’.

The Baby Farmers is a welcome addition to the field of Australian true crime writing. Cossins’s book is a compelling, if relentlessly grim, read.