Lasseter's Truth

Jack Johnson is both lucky and unlucky. He survives the Vietnam war as a decorated helicopter pilot, marries the girl he left behind, and lands on his feet at Australia’s leading advertising agency, as a launch pad to spectacular success in the industry. Lucky, you might say.

But luck can change. Jack is hit with a bogus criminal charge that chases him into the Great Australian Desert, in a quest for Lasseter’s fabled gold reef.

But Jack is not the only one looking. A mysterious Chinese company called Triple Eight is buying up leases in the desert, and people are dying.

Back home, he leaves not only a heartbroken wife but a beautiful and very determined daughter who has had her own problems. Expelled from Australia’s most prestigious public school, Tess Johnson vows to clear her father’s name.

Lasseter’s Truth follows them both as they take on the odds. A story that ranges from the greed of the nineties, into a famous legend of Australia’s outback, with a compelling climax for our own time.

John Somerset was born in Melbourne, Australia and spent his childhood on the Surf Coast of Victoria. This was the time of the birth of modern-day surfing, with the introduction of the Okanui surf board. His early experiences on the Surf Coast of Victoria culminated in a poorly-funded trip to the North Shore of Hawaii, long before it became the surfing mecca of today.

He was educated at Geelong Grammar, which had just begun its Mt Timbertop campus in which boys of fifteen spent one school year in the Victorian Alps. This, plus an agricultural science course at Melbourne University imparted a lifetime love of the bush.

And a fascination with gold.

In between a working life in advertising and marketing, John has travelled Australia’s outback by 4WD; including Lasseter Country.

He lives and writes at Anglesea, Victoria with his wife and one-eyed kelpie.