The stories in Eight Pieces on Prostitution span the whole of my writing life and include my first published story, ‘The Man Who Liked to Come with the News’. My first novel, Tunnel Vision, is set in a Melbourne massage parlour, and I have continued to return to the theme of prostitution in my novels and short stories, notably in The House at Number 10 and in this collection. ‘Where the Ladders Start’ is a long story, almost a novella, based around a suspicious death. Many of the stories are set in Canberra, Australia’s national capital, where I lived for thirty years before returning to Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula.
The first of my Sandra Mahoney mystery quartet, The Trojan Dog, was joint winner ACT Book of the Year. It was published in Australia by Wakefield Press and in the United States by St Martin’s Press. The second, The White Tower, was also published in Australia and North America. All four books feature the cyber-sleuth Sandra Mahoney and her partner, Ivan Semyonov, along with Detective Sergeant Brook, of the ACT police. Each is set during a particular season, hence the title of autumn: The Fourth Season.
Two of my literary novels, One for the Master and Ruth, have been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin award. I’ve had numerous short stories published in magazines and anthologies, and I regularly review fiction for the Sydney Morning Herald. I’m a founding member of the influential ‘7 Writers’ group, which began meeting in Canberra in the early 1980s, and continued as a writers’ workshop and discussion group for almost twenty years.
I’m currently working on a sea-change mystery series, set at the home of ‘Sea-change’ the TV series, on the south coast of Victoria. The first of these is called Through a Camel’s Eye.
You can find out more about me and my books on my website