As triple murderer Erin Patterson begins what will probably be the rest of her life behind bars, true crime accounts of her handiwork are hitting bookshop shelves.
It's widely known that the killer cook was jailed for 33 years after feeding former in-laws Don and Gail Patterson and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson beef Wellingtons laced with death cap mushrooms at her Leongatha home in 2023.
Having last week turned 51, the stretch will mean Patterson will be well into her 80s by the time she tastes life on the outside again, if in fact she survives.
To be sure, her sensational trial captivated not only Australia but the world as more than 50 witnesses delivered testimony over 10 marathon weeks.
Amid those to report on the conclusion of the exhaustive hearings, the BBC ran a live blog that led its online site, such was the reach of the bizarre case.
The Al Jazeera network and US masthead The Washington Post were others to cover it from afar.
Yet with seemingly all said and done, is there still more to know about what happened and why?
Veteran screenwriter Greg Haddrick is one who thinks so.
He's promising fresh insights into the police investigation of the murders and other details he contends were lost in the daily media coverage in his book The Mushroom Murders, which is slated for publication by Allen & Unwin on Tuesday.
There's also Recipe for Murder by former NSW detective and private investigator Duncan McNab, due out October 14, and The Mushroom Tapes, penned by Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein on November 11.
Haddrick insists it's "a much bigger story than people realise".
In the race to market, the release date for his offering has twice been brought forward and he says The Mushroom Murders took "about 100 cups of coffee" - that's two or three months - to write.
His account of the Patterson trial is told from the point of view of a fictional juror, who finds it hard to believe that without any motive, an intent to kill could be proven beyond reasonable doubt.
The Logie-winning screenwriter and producer is perhaps best known as co-writer of Underbelly, the television series that dramatised Melbourne's gangland wars, and for the fictional shows Crownies and Janet King.
If aspects of the case seem almost impossible to believe, it's because they're real life, Haddrick says.
"In crime fiction, you have to deal with credibility but with truth you don't have to be credible - you've just got to say it's real."
"Once a cop, always a cop", according to the adage, yet McNab's subsequent private eye work has seen him specialise in criminal defence.
It's something that surely gives him a rare perspective from both sides of the tracks.
He's also plied his skills as an investigative journalist and a media advisor to government, authored a dozen other books and was a producer on Seven's Murder Uncovered series and the Nine Network's Australia Behind Bars.
Drawing on this extensive experience, the sleuth-turned-author presents "unmatched insight into the key evidence, the legal strategy and the emotional toll of a case that gripped the nation and captured global attention", according to publisher Hachette.
The Mushroom Tapes: Conversations on a Triple Murder Trial sees three true crime authors collaborating in Garner, Hooper and Krasnostein.
The trio physically joined the media scrum at Latrobe Valley Law Courts and spent hours discussing the themes of the case, which include revenge, marriage and mycology.
So too do they talk through their own ambivalence about the true crime genre in an exploration of "the gap between the certainties of the law and the messiness of reality".
Self-published accounts of the case are already available online, including a book by bare-knuckle boxing promoter Stu Armstrong.
A former true crime Facebook group friend of Patterson's and witness at the trial, Daniela Barkley, is promoting an upcoming novel Bloody Good Friends, based on fact and promising "whacky true crime groups".
There are screen versions also, with upcoming ABC drama series Toxic from filmmaker Tony Ayres and Recipe for Murder optioned for television.
The Victorian Supreme Court dealt with more than 250 journalists and media outlets throughout the trial, including nine authors and seven documentary crews.
Haddrick believes the case remains a source of fascination due to Erin Patterson's contradictions and the unanswered question of motive.
A mother of two with no criminal background living a quiet life in rural Victoria is as far away from the idea of mass murder as it's possible to be, he says.
"A lot of people feel a real need to understand why when it comes to murder and she's one of the most difficult cases to answer that question."
