IIn 2008, the Author published his debut crime novel, The award-winning topical crime thriller has recently been released in an updated edition - All The Cardinal's Men. By then writing fulltime, this book was followed by the intriguing story of the robbery of the icon of the art world, the Mona Lisa based partially on fact - Mona Lisa-The Virgin Mother. Soon followed by a sequel, Curse of the Diamonds, winner of the 2012 Asian Editors Choice Award, and currently a bestseller in publication in four countries.
His abiding interest in historical fiction continues with The Emigrants. first published as an omnibus edition in 2010. Expanded to a series, the first volume – The Brothers Five – was published in both print and eBook formats in 2012. Gold & Glory – was printed in 2015 with the final volume – The Sisters Three – to complete the trilogy. Extensively travelled, with a close knowledge of much of Europe and Asia, his stories continue to possess an affinity with their locales. A sequel to Curse of the Diamonds, set in England and Europe, is currently a work in progress.
This book sets the basis for the series, giving backgrounds for all the families involved. I look forward to the next instalment. Great historical fiction ... I could be right there.
I really enjoyed reading this book but I wish I had known the next two books have not yet been published. Now I'm waiting to find out what happens to multiple characters, but I guess that means the author engaged me with the story.
The ancient town of Southampton was not always a haven for the detritus of the Anglo-Saxon people.
By 1850, the once pretty seaside had become a major emigrant port.
Huge timber wharves replaced the stony beaches.
Warehouses, bawdy houses, brothels, bars and inns provided refuge to all manner of crooks to sell their wares or ply their trades. Men were robbed or shanghaied, women raped or kidnapped -- there was nothing that could not be bought, begged, stolen or sold along the waterfront.
Filth, garbage and open sewers discharged into the previously pristine, deep waters of the river. A forest of masts from all over the world substituted for the tall trees of yesteryear.
Ships invariably departed with a largely human cargo. The wretches for transport to the colonies as convicts had been chained in long sad rows, hands secured to hands, legs to legs, shuffling forward to some unheard cadence.
Now the human exodus was voluntary but no less sad, leaving their loved ones for the uncertainties of the colonies as emigrants.
But for many, the only differences were the lack of chains and the crack of the cat-o-nine tails.
THE EMIGRANTS has all the crime, action, suspense and romance of the best-selling novel tempered with the realism of the true story of the stoicism of the lower classes making up most of the emigrants - and the foundation of the colonies. Nearly half the English- speaking world is directly related to the greatest diaspora in recent history.
Transport and the tyranny of distance was the real problem for the colony of New South Wales. Distance limited the how far wheat, the most valuable of the farm crops, could be transported but it was generally no more than thirty or forty miles.
Cattle, fattened on the lush pastures of the coastal ranges, walked to market losing a little fat but the beef the small population could consume, was limited. While hides were exported back to England by the thousand, it was not a proposition to raise cattle for skins alone.
Only sheep were valuable enough to show a profit – a ton of wool worth ten times that of a ton of wheat. Wool could afford the cost of transport to the ports, and across the world where growing markets, created by the woollen mills of England and Europe, had an insatiable appetite for the fleece. Flocks of sheep doubled every few years but needing huge acreages, most squatted their flocks as settlers claimed larger and larger tracts of the colony.
The bullock driver brought the bales after shearing down dusty bush tracks to the Sydney merchants, sometimes hundreds of miles. Swaying from side to side, with wheels creaking, accompanied by a volley of strange oaths and the sharp crack of the stock whip, the monstrous beasts strained at their yokes with the attendant kelpies nipping their heels. Close to the near wheel walked the driver, tall and broad-shouldered – a sunburnt care-worn man with long shaggy hair covered by a grubby, wide brimmed, sweat-marked hat. A months beard covered his dusty face. Dressed in the trademark dark blue cotton shirt with sleeves rolled to the shoulders of his browned, hairy arms, coarse moleskin trousers and calf-half leather boots completed his uniform. A wizened man, more shabbily dressed in much the same gear, trotted along the off side. With three mongrel dogs chained under the back axle of the dray, another load of the golden fleece was off to market.
The hard-working pioneer squatter won in time. Some even became extremely wealthy, and understandably possessive of their lands. Against the world trend, many sought to continue the transportation of convicts providing cheap labour. Failing in these endeavours, the emigrants changed the balance, supplying the lifeblood of the colony – labour.
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