When a television news program in 1987 exposed endemic misconduct in the Queensland Police Force, a chain of events was triggered that resulted in the collapse of a corrupt network known as 'the Joke' and the jailing of the state's police commissioner. In Under a Bad Sun, historical criminologist Paul Bleakley goes beyond the headlines to explore the extent and impact of this corruption in Australia's Sunshine State, and the risk that politicised policing poses to the social contract between police and public.