About me….
I was born and educated in England, trained as a journalist for a major newspaper in the Midlands before becoming a reporter-at-large in the USA, Europe and the Middle East writing for international newspapers and magazines. While in Israel to cover the conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians, I met my Czech-born wife, Eva, and travelled with her to her home in Australia to get married. I became a financial journalist, marketing consultant to financial and banking institutions and political commentator before writing books. My first was a little work about my wife’s pregnancy, and the second was a college textbook on marketing. But fiction was always my greatest love, and journalism and marketing are wonderful training grounds for a life as a story-teller.
My first novel was a story which I uncovered working for Reuters International News Agency in Israel; because of its controversial themes, I didn’t write it until coming to Australia. The Jericho Files, which was published by HarperCollins was an international success. Since then, I’ve written over thirty novels, with subjects ranging from the Bible to ancient and modern history. Three years before the arrival of COVID, I wrote a book called Bat Out Of Hell about an international pandemic coming from the East which causes mass fatalities. I’ve also written autobiographies for politicians and senior business leaders and contributed numerous Opinion Columns for newspapers of record in Australia and internationally.
My two latest novels are The Devil’s Apprentice, a fictionalised autobiography of the real Faust and his problems with the invention of the printing press, and His Head on a Platter, about the life of the Renaissance artist Artemisia Gentileschi. Both are currently under negotiations with cable networks in the States to be made into television series. And my just-released novel, Lady of the Night is a story about truth in fiction and fiction in truth. It was inspired by the unexpected rise to power of Donald Trump in America and his ability to repeatedly lie and persuade so many Americans that he was telling the truth. The Nazi Minister for Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” and this is the basis of my new novel.
Why fiction….
Since the beginning of our history, humankind has been a storyteller. There’s a continuous narrative thread stretching from the sign language and grunts of cave dwellers, to the sonnets of Shakespeare and the cinematic magic of Lord of the Rings.
The French philosopher Roland Barthes said that the author disappears the moment the book is finished because the act of reading a book creates its own fiction in readers’ minds, based on their own life experiences. The death of the author leads to the birth of the reader as writer.
Which is why I love finding and sharing stories about fabulous people who have been written out of history….people long forgotten, but who have incredible stories to tell.
The reason I became a novelist was because of my Year 11 Biology teacher. I’ve forgotten his name, but decades later, I’ve never forgotten the things he taught us. He didn’t just teach zoology or botany from textbooks, but made the subject live for his students by telling us vivid, exciting stories about the world of animals and the benefits which plants provide.
He taught me that stories and their images stay in our minds long after facts are forgotten. Memorising facts, once the driving force of educators, is no longer as crucial, thanks to the availability of Wikipedia and Google; but stories…..narrative….. are the bedrock of a cultured person.
Which is why I dive headlong into history, from Biblical times to last century, in order to find long-forgotten people whose lives and accomplishments have been lost to us, but whom I can bring back from history into today, within the context of their own times, and make them live again.
And that’s the marvellous thing about novels and being a novelist. Because novels tell a real truth within a framework of fascinating fiction.
And you can read about them here…..
