'Macklin recounts, with beautiful detail, the following years of Narcisse's life and his transformation . . . a great read for anyone interested in Australia and its overlooked history' Ronan Breathnach, Irish Examiner 'A truly remarkable account drawing upon a version Pelletier gave when he eventually returned to his native France and also on anthropological studies of the Daintree people.' Piers Akerman, Daily Telegraph, Sydney 'An unforgettable tale of transformation and upheaval.' Stuart McLean, Daily Telegraph, Sydney A young boy abandoned in an alien landscape thousands of miles from home is adopted by local people and becomes one of them, welcomed into their community, marrying a wife and raising a child. After seventeen years, he is stolen back to his 'real' life, where he has another family, but dreams constantly of what he has left behind. This is the remarkable true story of a French cabin boy Narcisse Pelletier who, after disembarking from his ship the Saint-Paul with the rest of its crew in search of drinking water, found himself separated from his shipmates and in the end abandoned on the north coast of Queensland, Australia. Narcisse was adopted by an Aboriginal group who welcomed him as one of their own for seventeen years, during which time he had a family of his own. In 1875, though, he was kidnapped by the brig John Bell and was returned eventually to his family in Saint-Gilles, France, where he became a lighthouse keeper. Robert Macklin makes skilful use of Narcisse's own memoir Chez les sauvages along with new research to tell this extraordinary story. Robert is a Queenslander so knows the terrain and the people of the area in which Narcisse was left behind. Through Noel Pearson's Cape York Institute, he has arranged to meet descendants of the people who took the French cabin boy in and who know the stories of his time in Australia. Robert has also had access to a great deal of material on the early history of the Cape through the Australian National Library. He has drawn on the significant resources of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) in Canberra on Aboriginal culture and history in Queensland and the Cape. In addition, he has made use of Narcisse Pelletier's own writings, including his account of his time in Australia, as well as several contemporaneous accounts of the Kennedy expedition to the area, including one from a member of the party. The author has made several trips to Cape York and one to Saint-Gilles and Saint-Nazaire in France.

'You almost feel you are taking that trek with the party as Robert Macklin cites the obstacles - torrential river crossings, dense bush, the Snowy Mountains and more. Macklin covers Hume's public and private life, emphasising his affinity with the country and rapport with the Indigenous people, as well as providing a portrait of the evolving colony.' SYDNEY MORNING HERALD The stirring untold story of a true Australian hero who opened up the nation. While English-born soldiers, sailors and surveyors have claimed pride of place among the explorers of the young New South Wales colony, the real pathfinder was a genuine native-born Australian. Hamilton Hume, a man with a profound understanding of the Aboriginal people and an almost mystical relationship with the Australian bush, led settlers from the cramped surrounds of Sydney Town to the vast fertile country that would provide the wealth to found and sustain a new nation. Robert Macklin, author of the critically acclaimed DARK PARADISE, tells the heroic tale of this young Australian man who outdid his English 'betters' by crossing the Blue Mountains, finding a land route from Sydney to Port Phillip and opening up western New South Wales. His contribution to the development of the colony was immense but downplayed in deference to explorers of British origin. HAMILTON HUME uncovers this brave man's achievements and paints an intriguing and at times shocking portrait of colonial life, by the author of the bestselling SAS SNIPER. 'Robert Macklin calls Hamilton Hume 'our greatest explorer', and now that I've read this enthralling but at times shocking story, I totally agree.' ***** GOOD READING

JUDAS, THE HERO At the heart of Jesus' delusion was his obsessive desire to offer himself as a sacrifice so his 'Father' would bring an end to the world with the Day of Judgement. He could not accomplish this alone. So he chose his favourite, the disciple he had given charge of the groups funds: Judas Iscariot, the man judged by history as the quintessential traitor to assist him. History is wrong. They worked hand in glove. A gnostic fragment discovered in 1972 and publicly revealed in 2005, The Gospel of Judas supports this view. But the real story of the partnership between Jesus and Judas is actually contained in the New Testament itself and is revealed with blinding clarity in historian and biographer, Robert Macklin's pioneering work, THE JESUS DELUSION. 'Robert Macklin digs into the texts to come up with a complex, indignant and physically unattractive human being who will disturb today's Fundamentalists almost as much as Jesus upset his fellow Rabbis.' Phillip Adams

'This is what an SAS career is really like' AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE MAGAZINE Elite SAS Patrol Commander Stuart 'Nev' Bonner takes us inside the extraordinary and dangerous world of secret combat operations in this explosive, behind-the-scenes look at life inside the SAS. A world where capture means torture or death, and every move is trained for with precision detail to bring elite soldiers to the very peak of fighting ability. In a career spanning twenty years, fourteen of them in the SAS, Bonner shares with us the inside story of being out in front - and often behind enemy lines. From patrolling the mountains of East Timor to covert operations in Bougainville and the Solomon Islands, from sweeping into the Iraqi desert ahead of invading US forces to cripple Saddam Hussein's communications to patrolling in war-torn Baghdad and being in the middle of the disastrous Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan - this is a no-holds-barred account of what it's like to live, eat and breathe SAS. Now part of the HACHETTE MILITARY COLLECTION.

'You almost feel you are taking that trek with the party as Robert Macklin cites the obstacles - torrential river crossings, dense bush, the Snowy Mountains and more. Macklin covers Hume's public and private life, emphasising his affinity with the country and rapport with the Indigenous people, as well as providing a portrait of the evolving colony.' SYDNEY MORNING HERALD While English-born soldiers, sailors and surveyors have claimed pride of place among the explorers of the young New South Wales colony, the real pathfinder was a genuine native-born Australian. Hamilton Hume, a man with a profound understanding of the Aboriginal people and an almost mystical relationship with the Australian bush, led settlers from the cramped surrounds of Sydney Town to the vast fertile country that would provide the wealth to found and sustain a new nation. Robert Macklin, author of the critically acclaimed DARK PARADISE, tells the heroic tale of this young Australian man who outdid his English 'betters' by crossing the Blue Mountains, finding a land route from Sydney to Port Phillip and opening up western New South Wales. His contribution to the development of the colony was immense but downplayed in deference to explorers of British origin. HAMILTON HUME uncovers this brave man's achievements and paints an intriguing and at times shocking portrait of colonial life, by the author of the bestselling SAS SNIPER. 'Robert Macklin calls Hamilton Hume 'our greatest explorer', and now that I've read this enthralling but at times shocking story, I totally agree.' ***** GOOD READING

The fascinating story of the Chinese presence in and influence on this country - our intertwined history from colonial times to today. Chinese 'presence' in Australia extends from well before the time of Captain Cook - trading with northern Australia long before Europeans came here - right through to the present day, with Chinese activities ranging from being the main customer for our iron ore, to their very extensive intelligence operations here. Robert Macklin, bestselling and critically acclaimed author of HAMILTON HUME and DARK PARADISE, has traced a new history of the two nations. Macklin's engrossing narrative reaches from pre-colonial times, to John Macarthur's 'coolie' shepherds, the only Chinese bushranger, Sam Pu, and the multiple atrocities committed against the Chinese in the gold rush; through to the 20th century, where the two Australians - 'Morrison of Peking' and William Donald - played a significant role in the downfall of the last Chinese emperor and the creation of the first republic, before World War II and decades of Cold War brinkmanship; to our current economic bonds and Australia's role in the dangerous geopolitics of the South China Sea. DRAGON AND KANGAROO is an absorbing account of a vastly underestimated part of Australia's story: this is our shared history, from an immensely important - and entirely new - angle. 'A well-informed, instructive, highly readable and often entertaining narrative of Australia-China relations from before the beginnings of Australia to the present day.' Stephen FitzGerald, former Australian Ambassador to China 'Macklin shows how China has been an integral part of our story from the beginning.' Professor Richard Rigby, Executive Director, China Institute, Australian National University