Gold Coast lawyer Chris Nyst on his 45 years in criminal law, defending career criminals, going head to head with corrupt police, heroin addicts and a postcard bandit (R)

When Chris Nyst finished studying law in the mid 1970s, he moved to a town by the beach to begin his life as a lawyer, not because it was a glitzy and glamorous city back then, but because he wanted to surf.

But his nearly five decades as a criminal lawyer on the Gold Coast turned out to be a wild ride through crime, corruption, and shady characters.

Chris has used some of the most dramatic chapters in his working life as inspiration for his crime fiction and for the film Getting Square.

This episode of Conversations explores drug crime, surf culture, addiction, substance abuse, the justice system, the Fitzgerald Inquiry, the Fitzgerald Report, Tony Fitzgerald, Queensland corruption, cops, petty crime, bank robbing, robbery, murder, Australian crime, Brenden Abbott, career criminals.

Millen is published by Angus and Robertson.