To the incomparable Richard Walsh, who unearthed this novel—buried in a manuscript that encompassed thirty-five years of the main characters’ lives—a deep debt of gratitude.
There are many others who inspired its creation. Chief among them are my dear friends Mark Aarons and Pierre Vicary, who both taught me so much. Mark set me on the historical course this novel follows with his groundbreaking ABC radio documentary series, Nazis in Australia, while Pierre guided me on my first tour of Yugoslavia before the conflict and also on subsequent trips there during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. The work of Dorde Licina, especially his book Dvadesiti Covjek (Centar za Informacije I Publicite, Zagreb, 1985), helped inform the narrative of the Bosnian incursion, which features the fictional revolutionary, Marin Katich.
I would also like to thank the former policemen, ASIO men, politicians, political advisors and journalists who enhanced my understanding of the dramatic true events in 1972 and ’73 that underpin my fictional story. I would particularly like to thank Kerry Milte, former Commonwealth Police Superintendent, barrister and Renaissance man, who resolutely appears under his own name in The Twentieth Man.
Profound thanks are also due to my wonderful and patient editors—my publisher Annette Barlow, and Sarah Baker and Rebecca Starford.
And, above all, so much more than gratitude to my beloved wife Sarah, to whom I owe everything.