The Hitchhiker and The Lecter Variations are both out now!

After a month at #1 on Audible in 2022, The Hitchhiker has finally taken its rightful place as a physical book on shelves with the others (it should sit between The Inheritance and The Caretaker, continuity sticklers).

I’ve always been really proud of The Hitchhiker and while I could not have asked for more support from Audible, I always hoped it would one day get a print release. It’s every bit as much one of my novels as the others and for my money possibly the best of my thrillers, so it’s beyond gratifying that the HarperCollins team got behind it.

But quite unexpectedly I had another book release the same week. If you’ve followed me for a while you’ll know about my passion project; The Lecter Variations, an analytical deep dive into the entire Hannibal franchise. With the cover and typesetting finalised I knew the book wouldn’t be far off release, but I didn’t expect to get an email out of the blue one morning saying that it was now available.

The Lecter Variations is predominantly going to be available online (as you may have guessed it’s a touch niche), via Amazon or the publisher’s website. But you can expect to see it turn up in certain stores over the coming weeks so of course I’ll keep you updated on where to get it if Amazon isn’t your preference. And once promo and events for The Hitchhiker have died down I’ll work towards getting a proper launch event underway for Lecter, maybe in conjunction with a screening…

August Events

This newsletter is coming in a bit late so some of the events scheduled for this month have already happened, along with a few school appearances and drop in signings.

At the time of writing (August 8), I’m on the way up to Ballarat for an in conversation chat with the legendary Marg Hickey, before heading to Mansfield tomorrow to launch Hitchhiker there with a special preview screening of The Retirement Plan. I’ll post photos and recap both those events in the next newsletter.

The middle of my August is essentially swallowed up with school talks, but at the end of the month I’m doing two back to back events in Sydney. First up I’ll be launching The Hitchhiker at Berkelouw Leichhardt on August 29 in conversation with Anna Downes and Josh Hortinela, then the next evening I’ll be in conversation with Nicola Moriarty at Gordon Library.

Then in September I’ll be heading up to the High Country for a mini tour of Benalla, Wangaratta and Albury before a Q&A at the Chestnut Bookshop on the 19^th for the Bad Writer’s Club. I’ll share details of the rural events once I have them.

The Caretaker has been longlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Award

This was such a nice surprise – The Caretaker has been longlisted for the prestigious Ngaio Marsh Award alongside some top crime novels from brilliant Kiwi authors (yes I’m a Kiwi).

I have to thank Craig Sisterton and everyone at the Marsh awards for this. It’s such an honour and I really mean it when I say I never expected to even be in the conversation.

Hitchhiker Book Launch

We officially launched The Hitchhiker at my favourite little bar, Rosalita’s in Camberwell, and it could not have been a better night. John Erasmus, director of The Retirement Plan, had everyone laughing and asked some great and insightful questions.

I scribbled in lots of books and had plenty of great chats. It was, in totality, one of the best book launches I’ve ever had and it was the perfect way to send the book out into the world.

Prequel Trilogies Article

After my article for InSession Film last month exploring the Jurassic World Trilogy, I figured I’d go bigger and take on three maligned trilogies; namely the Star Wars, Hobbit and Fantastic Beasts prequels. I’ve always found it so interesting how three of the biggest franchises around each got their very own underwhelming prequel trilogies that all made many of the same mistakes as each other. But with the Star Wars prequels having recently undergone something of a reappraisal, I got to wondering whether the same could happen in the other two cases.

Check the piece out here for my conclusion.

Lecter Variations Q&A

To coincide with the release of The Lecter Variations, I did a little Q&A for publisher Bear Manor. Check it out here.

Fandom Blog

I’ve written before about how my relationship with the concept of fandom started to get complicated around the release of The Last Jedi, and in the years then I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable calling myself a fan despite exhibiting the kind of fervent obsession towards certain fiction properties that can’t be called much else. Case in point, one of the major subjects of this newsletter.

I decided to unpack what changed and why in my latest blog post. Check it out here.

Sails Apartments Interview

A couple of months back I stayed at Sails Apartments in Forster when I was up for the MidCoast Festival of Stories. While there I got talking to the owner Belinda and she asked if I’d be happy to sit down for an interview, which of course I was.

The video has been posted in parts over on the Sails Instagram account, but you can read the whole thing at this link.

The Lodger - Excerpt

This newsletter has been a little low on exclusive material, so I thought given it’s print release month for The Hitchhiker I’d provide a little glimpse at the sequel. The Lodger hits Audible on October 1 and I’ll be posting a lot more about it in weeks to come. But for now, enjoy the first couple of pages.

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The lodger arrived on the second day of summer. Ryan was over by the shed, trying to work out what the hell was wrong with the combine harvester before Bill got back, when he heard the car trundling down the driveway. He looked across the scorched grass between the guesthouse and his own house to the cloud of dust and, assuming Sophie was home early, he returned his attention to the harvester.

Bill was insisting it had to be a bent rasp bar or a bad bearing in the engine. The implication there was obvious – Ryan hadn’t checked things properly. Except he had. He knew he had. He just had to prove as much. Spanner in hand, he got back to work, ignoring the heavy smell of oil and the heat bearing down. Trying not to indulge his irrational anger at the sun, or the harvester, or himself for not knowing what he was supposed to be looking for in the engine while the fine chaff and wheat bust blown into his face with every mild gust of wind irritated the shit out of him. He leaned a little closer. Muttered fuck to himself.

‘There a swear jar around here?’

He jerked upright, hitting his head, and staggered back. A stranger was standing in front of the shed. Middle-aged, in slacks and a tucked-in business shirt, the sleeves rolled up. His hair and moustache were neat. He was a little pudgy in the face. His smile looked permanent. He had a narrow scar over his left eye. Ryan’s gaze settled on it.

The man laughed. ‘Noticing the old battle wound, I see! Looks pretty cool, eh? Wish I could say I got it fighting a tiger or something more impressive than a little fall.’ He extended a hand.

Not sure what else to do, Ryan took it, keeping the shake quick.

‘George,’ the stranger said. ‘I’ve booked the guesthouse for the week.’

Ryan looked from the house to the man. ‘Sorry. Must be some kind of mistake.’

George didn’t react. Just watched Ryan with that smile.

Realising the stranger wasn’t going to ask about the mistake in question, Ryan went on. ‘We don’t, um, take guests. Or anything. So, I don’t know how you could have booked it.’

George scratched the back of his head. ‘Well, now I’m a little confused because I definitely paid for it – for this address and that house. Saw the photos and all. Looks amazing.’

A spark of irritation. The guesthouse did not look amazing. It had sat abandoned for years and they hadn’t had the time to clean it up since arriving here. Sophie had suggested hiring it out a few times, to bring in a little extra cash, but Ryan was already stretched too thin to put in the effort.

‘I’m sorry, mate, but I can’t—’

George handed Ryan his phone. There it was. The guesthouse, with what must have been ten filters added, at the head of an email: “Congratulations: You’re Headed to Rowville!”. There were the dates. The confirmed transactions. Sophie’s details. Ryan handed the phone back. The man was still smiling.

Ryan turned away. A pulse of low anger. He had told her no. Multiple times.

‘It’s a good idea,’ Sophie, at her laptop, had insisted. ‘The house is just sitting there and every little bit counts and—’

‘We’re not a bloody motel,’ Ryan had said, cracking a beer and wishing she’d just drop it. ‘I don’t have the time to fix the joint up and—’

‘Get Bill to, then.’

Jesus, he could think of nothing worse. The old prick making snide comments about how Ryan couldn’t tighten a couple of pipes or rewire any lighting fixtures.

‘We’re too busy, Soph. End of discussion.’

Now he wondered if she’d listed the guesthouse that night out of spite.

Ryan had to collect himself. He might not have approved the bloody thing, but he knew better than to throw a tantrum because it had been done behind his back. ‘Bear with me a sec?’ he said.

‘Sure as shootin’!’

Leaving the man in the shadow of the shed, Ryan headed for the house. He had his phone out but didn’t call Sophie. He wasn’t sure what to say to her. Wasn’t sure he could say anything without yelling. He stepped around the front of the house, under the porch and sat on a cobweb-coated old chair. He looked at his phone and thought about what to do and suddenly Bill was there.

‘Taking a load off, are ya?’

The farmhand leaned against one of the poles as he lit a smoke, all wiry muscles and leather skin under a stained singlet. Bill had barely changed since Ryan’s childhood. Back then, Ryan had never been able to decide who he dreaded seeing more: his old man, hunched on the chair outside the shed, cigarette pinched between two fingers, scowling as he surveyed his domain, or Bill, hands in pockets and eyes squinted, backing up every piece of criticism Ryan’s father had for him.

Bill had been indispensable to his dad. And when Ryan had come back to the farm, Bill was still there, still doing the chores and fixing machinery and working the harvest. Ryan, who was rusty at best when it came to farm work, had seen no choice but to keep him on. There’d never even been a discussion about it. Which rankled. The prick should have at least asked him.

‘Did Sophie get you to fix up the guesthouse?’ Ryan asked.

Bill lit his smoke. Took a long drag.

‘Well?’ Ryan pushed.

Bill shrugged. ‘Figured you’d signed off on it.’

Prick. He’d figured no such thing.

Ever since Ryan and Sophie’s arrival less than a year ago, Bill had been difficult. He loved to act as though Ryan had no idea what he was doing here, despite him having grown up on the farm. Bill would regularly try to catch Ryan out on different things, set traps when it came to maintenance or getting ready for the harvest.

But as the harvest itself approached, the clashes became a little rougher.

‘Your old man never used pesticides,’ Bill had snarled when Ryan announced his first major change. ‘The farm is fucking organic.’

‘And then lose half the crop to bugs?’

‘Never happened with Darren. Never.’

Except it had. Ryan vividly remembered  the financial pain in those years.

‘It’s fucking lazy,’ Bill pushed on. ‘And stingy. If you just hired a few more farmhands, who know what they’re doing, you won’t have to take so many stupid shortcuts.’

Ryan had been tempted to challenge Bill on that point, to ask if he’d gotten so old and tired that he couldn’t do all the work around here anymore, couldn’t weed the fields and clear the rocks, clean the grain bins and fix the fences and make sure all the equipment was in good nick. But the truth was, Bill was right, at least when it came to harvest time. Ryan had vaguely remembered harvests being a fairly small operation when he was a kid – which made sense, given it was a small farm. But this last one, which had dragged out until the harvester broke, had been punishing and brutal, made worse by the bad yields and the dwindling money.

Bill might want to blame him for the farm’s terrible state, but things had been looking bad for a long time before Ryan came back. One look at the bank records showed that. And so Ryan’s father had left him with bad equipment and Bill, and no money to replace either.

Occasionally, over the course of the seemingly endless harvest, Ryan had managed to get some temporary help when needed, but he always winced when he had to pay them. And without much grain, there wasn’t much profit to be made.

The harvest had pushed into December and Ryan knew they couldn’t afford to call it a day now. But he also doubted he could afford the servicing the harvester needed – even as every day that passed without getting into the fields bled him drier and drier. And all the while Sophie moped and Bill sneered, and Ryan felt more and more like he was drowning. But to admit that fact would be tantamount to proving Bill right.

And now, to add insult to previous insult, Bill was indulging Sophie’s stupid whims without thinking to ask him.

‘Fix the harvester yet?’ Bill asked easily.

‘That’s not what we’re talking about.’

‘Kind of should be,’ Bill said. ‘Dunno if you’re across this, but the longer the wheat stays out there, the bigger the risk of the weather ruining it.’

Ryan was across that, but he wasn’t about to let Bill win this. He returned his attention to his phone. Shot a text to Sophie. Bloke’s here for the guesthouse. Anything else you wanna tell me?

Without another word to Bill, Ryan returned to the harvester.

George was hunched over it, looking at the exposed engine.

‘Leave that, would you?’ Ryan said.

George stepped back, raising both hands. ‘No interfering, I promise.’

‘No worries on the house,’ Ryan said. ‘Some crossed wires. I’ll let you in.’

He could hear the lodger whistling behind him. Drenched in sweat, his trousers chafing, and still sore over Sophie’s stunt, Ryan felt again that unwelcome cold splash of knowledge that this was not how things were supposed to have gone.