The circumstances happended.
This is based wholey & soley on fact. Maybe this is why it didn't fair as well in the states. It is recorded in many crime non fiction books about Sydney's underworld. The main character Barry is utterly about a Balmain born, Gladesville lived, Cessnock prison deceased man called Leonard Arthur McPherson.
What I want to know is how true is the line Felix gives Sam about the Mafia staging the Vietnam war in cahoots with the USA government just to get " a bunch of *beep* and white trash addicted to heroin, so we'd have a ready market for the one's that get home"...
"Name two ways of getting them flowing, Watson".