In the early months of 1932 NSW was on the brink of civil war. Right-wing paramilitary groups, most notably the New Guard led by Lieutenant Colonel Eric Campbell, were involved in pitched battles with anarchists, communists and the followers of maverick Labor premier J.T. ("Jack") Lang who was wrongly labelled a "red". These rowdy, violent confrontations took place in the inner-city suburbs of Darlinghurst, Paddington, Woolloomooloo and Kings Cross and, to a lesser extent, on the North Shore in places such as Turramurra. As the New South Wales Police News editorialised in early March 1932, any policeman "who rushes to the scene of a clash between New Guard and Communists must be a glutton for knocks from both sides".

These days, the New Guard is most likely to bring to mind Captain Francis (Frank) Edward De Groot (1888-1969), an antiques and furniture dealer who played a starring role in the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge on March 19, 1932.

A neofascist Irishman of Huguenot descent, De Groot, aged 43 and riding a borrowed chestnut horse, slashed the bridge's opening ribbon with his World War I cavalry sword. In the process, he grossly annoyed Premier Lang and the large contingent of military officers and state and federal police. As Andrew Moore points out in this fascinating book, when De Groot said he declared the bridge open "in the name of the decent and respectable people" of NSW, he had decent New Guard members like himself in mind.

These were the same people who had plans either to kidnap Lang or to overthrow his government via a coup d'etat, if the governor, Sir Philip Game, did not dismiss the "Big Fella" first.