A Quest to Get Home Bound

It is the midst of the Second World War and rationing is tightening everyone’s belts. Yet down the dark alleyways of the French capital Paris, you would find a man who could get you anything on the underground market.

When a captured American ranger receives news from home, he knows he must escape from the Nazi prison camp in East Germany and embark on a quest to get to a neutral land, so he may return to his wife in America. Unexpectedly the ranger finds himself becoming mixed up in the Paris black-market syndicate. Can he survive long enough to afford his escape? Can he be homebound once again?

A Small Tale of the Great Circle

While the First World War is regularly depicted by the nature of its horror, it was also a period whereby the excitement of inventions and the suggestion of an exciting time to come churned up the aspirations of some. Add to this the imagining of a treasure hunt in an exotic location and the excitement squashed fear.

All you had to do was survive, to learn how to sail. But there was the small matter of the interloper who could make the enterprise so much easier to accomplish. But that man was self-evidently unscrupulous, not to say demonic; it could all be sunk so easily by antagonism so hard to suppress. They all relied on the other and no one was being completely frank. They all lied, as we do.

A Soldier's Conscience

When a soldier has trouble accepting the acts of the regime he serves, how much can his conscience take? What should he do? Could he betray his comrades? These are the questions that faced a young Wehrmacht soldier, after being posted to a top secret base in France. After helping the civilian French resistance, the former soldier must reinvent himself and join the Italian partisans. If these resistance members found out his true identity, he could forfeit his life. With potential enemies all around him, can he betray his fellow countrymen and survive the war unscathed?

Against the Rising Sun

An Age of War and Tea

2021 HFC Gold Medal Winner for Historical Fiction

An epic tale of intrigue, betrayal, and revenge, set in the turbulent era of sixteenth-century Japan. Sakichi is a provincial Samurai boy who reluctantly becomes ensnared in a conspiracy by a Shogun determined to reclaim his power. It is within this developing turmoil that events emerge to forever shape Sakichi’s life. With his life now shattered, Sakichi discovers that he is adopted, and his biological mother is a ruthless assassin, who is determined to prevent him from discovering the true identity of his father.

With such high stakes at play, Sakichi’s life is placed in grave danger. Rival factions compete with each other to assassinate him and his mother before he discovers the truth. Should the identity of Sakichi’s father become common knowledge it would not only threaten the rule of a powerful war lord but plunge the nation into greater turmoil and bloodshed.

Acclaim for An Age of War and Tea

“This book is one for the ages and ranks right up there with Shogun by James Clavell. For anyone who loves an immersive story, full of power struggles, life-changing secrets, and the full richness of the ancient exotic history of Japan, then this is must-read.” 

-HFC Awards/Book Reviews

Blessed is He

Towards the end of the American Civil War in 1863, Sergeant Zack Jackson, a black Confederate soldier, wakes up after a battle in Virginia, in a field full of his dead comrades, and he sees a hand held up in the middle of all the dead bodies. On further investigation, a dying soldier hands him a wallet, with both monies, his home address, and the deeds of a map of his claim to a gold mine. He requests, with his dying wish, that Zack takes the contents to his wife and family and to eventually go and find the gold mine. He then dies of his wounds. Zack, also gravely wounded, sets off to find the dead soldier’s home but collapses along the way. Isaac, a young 11-year-old Jewish boy, finds him and manages to take him back to his parents’ home where they look after him until he is fully recovered. Zack, fully refreshed, goes to find the dead soldier’s wife and hands her the wallet. She thanks him for his courage and honesty and agrees for him to search for the mine. Together with Isaac and his dog, they begin their journey through the dangerous terrain of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Unknown to them, they were being followed by an outlawed gang of Chinese immigrants, who had overheard their plans. They eventually manage to find the mine, but it is not what they expected. Ancient settlers from various Red Indian tribes appear and create havoc, and the two heroes are tasked with unbelievable struggles to save their own lives.

Blowing Away the Bura

In this novel, by October 1991 war in western Croatia between Croats and Serbs is daily and deadly. Navenka Berik, a wimpy 25-year-old Serb mother of two has had her Serb parents and her Croat husband make decisions for her. During the next few months:

- Her father is taken and presumed killed,

- Navenka is raped,

- Her husband is arrested and probably is killed,

- Her mother becomes crippled,

- From the rape, another child is born,

- Remaining family members are on the run as internally displaced persons in the dissolving Yugoslavia,

- The hassled Navenka has to step up and lead.

Unwelcome anywhere, the family languishes with temporary protection visas in Germany. In 1996, they are accepted as refugees in Australia. Peace, the English language and Australia’s very multicultural society bring many new problems. Navenka’s ongoing memories of her husband keep her wishing that he might be alive. Thoughts of moving back to Croatia or to Bosnia end when, briefly, Navenka attends the trial of those accused of murdering her father. There, poverty and the old ethnic prejudices live on. Back in Australia, her long “lost” husband finds her. However, after the initial joy wears off, the terms of his demand, at gunpoint, that his family go and live in Croatia with him are unacceptable. Navenka’s daughter Srebrenka, too young to be burdened by bad memories of Yugoslavia, cleverly resolves the impasse.

People react differently to war. Some think. Some “just feel”.

Crossroads in Time Philby and Angleton A Story of Treachery

A never-before-told account of the infamous relationship between the notorious British spy and Soviet agent Harold “Kim” Philby and the CIA’s Associate Director of Operations for Counter Intelligence, James Jesus Angleton. Readers will be drawn into the plot and story line of this historical thriller and real-life spy story. It’s an exciting and fast-paced retelling that promises to shine a light on this major moment in the Cold War. Readers are invited to draw their own conclusions about the events revealed in this book.

Devils are Dancing

Devils are Dancing is a coming-of-age story about heroism, a dysfunctional family, determination and enduring love. It is the story about the importance of mateship in adverse times as a boy becomes a man. Paul is a young man in search of his identity and the love he has lost. From the battlefields of the Iberian Peninsula in 1811 to the battle of Waterloo in 1815, Paul struggles to navigate the impact of war. However, a chance meeting with a fellow officer changes his life and helps him to grow and flourish despite his past struggles.

Expendable Soldiers

John Knight and his colleagues, who are part-time Australian Army soldiers, have escaped the Japanese once. Now they must continue to chance their arm as they setup a coast watcher network. The Coastwatchers will report on the Japanese from the islands of New Guinea. It's more than the Coastwatchers and the army who are under threat from the Japanese. There are many civilians in the New Guinea region who will soon be within the clutches of the advancing Japanese army. No one could have imagined the speed and efficiency of the Japanese army or their capacity to inflict cruelty on the innocent. They are not playing by the gentleman's rules of war. John knows there is no sense regretting his decision to join the part-time army. No one knew that the Japanese would attack New Guinea in 1942. It was just bad luck that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Australian Army is not prepared for the Japanese and considers John and his colleagues expendable, as they undertake their important mission. The group is using a stolen Japanese gunboat to deceive the Japanese but now they must fight their enemy on land and sea. The Coastwatchers on the islands around New Guinea are depending on John's group for their lives. John's group of part-time soldiers know they must quickly become better soldiers and have the luck of the Irish, if they are to survive the war.

Expendable Soldiers 3 – Counterpunch

Lt John Knight returns to the New Guinea frontline. He now leads small teams of special forces soldiers, who operate behind the lines, in the fight against the Japanese. The war has turned for the Japanese with Allied forces slowly pushing them back. But they are hanging on and are not a spent force.

Nothing has changed. It is still a fight to the death.

But now the allies, including John’s team, know how to fight the Japanese in the jungles of the Pacific. The Allies are no longer the pushover that they were at the beginning of the war.

John and his team are always on their own, and a long way from help, when they take on the Japanese. John continues to rely on cunning battle tactics and ferocious gunfights to ensure his team is punching above their weight. But will this be enough to overcome superior Japanese forces?

This is the third and final book in the highly popular Expendable Soldiers series.

Fleeting Images from a Bloodied Past

Ships against the sea! Was…STILL IS, a threat to all the vessels who sail upon her, and especially so, an ever-present threat to the crews who do their duty and put their lives in harm's way. Of violent storms, tempests… All the unpredictable hell of crosswinds, headwinds and tailwinds, roaring madly like some frenzied monster, changing direction, attempting to plunge the man-made object under the vengeful, towering and swamping thunderous waves, against which so many hardy ships have foundered, perished and been lost. The fact that the CSS Alabama came through such a storm and survived this maelstrom is testimony to the meticulous skills and concentrated painstaking patience and hard work of Laird's well-led and well-managed shipbuilding workforce and professional seamanship, that ensured the crew's safe passage and escape from this seaborne wretchedness. Warships, which survived incredible battle experience, and - at war's end - were reviewed for conversion, replacement or the breaker's yard was a consideration. Not all, however, because the fate of HMS Zealous continued in a new page of history, when she was transferred to the Israeli Navy. Later, in 1967, whilst out on patrol in the Eastern Mediterranean, she was suddenly attacked by Egyptian warships equipped with superior firepower. The new crew of this old warhorse knew that the fate of their emerging and vibrant new nation, fighting to retain her hard-fought existence, was dependent upon their spirited defence. Despite the fact that they were up against Soviet-supplied STYX surface-to-surface missiles, against which they had no defence, they steered into battle, undaunted. With battle pennants flying, they bravely challenged the enemy. Their fearlessness and courage shone in the face of certain destruction and ultimate sacrifice. The Cammell Laird scenario is riveting and strikingly dramatic…