My journey is about creating oddball characters. My stories drop people into high-pressure situations, the power-hungry and the innocent alike. Sometimes they survive. Mostly they don’t. The events are surreal – held together by a thread of humour – for the reader, anyway. The characters are mostly facing the worst times of their lives…how dare we chuckle.

The Mulga is Australia’s least distinguished warship — a training vessel on its last legs, sent to circumnavigate the country under a captain whose only real mission is his own promotion. What follows is a collision of naval rigidity, human absurdity, organised crime, and the one officer onboard who operates on facts rather than ego. The ship doesn’t just fall apart. It does so with extraordinary commitment.