Peter Grose

I started my working life as a journalist on the Sydney Daily Mirror, moved to London as a foreign correspondent for The Australian, switched to literary agency with Curtis Brown, first in Sydney then back in London, switched to book publishing with Martin Secker & Warburg in London, stayed as a publisher, first on my own and then with Australian Consolidated Press (UK), then started writing books. My first book A Very Rude Awakening tells the story of the Japanese midget submarine raid on Sydney Harbour in May 1942. My second book An Awkward Truth deals with the Japanese bombing raid on Darwin in February 1942 (by the same force that hit Pearl Harbor 10 weeks earlier). My third book A Good Place To Hide tells the story of the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon and the surrounding communities in the Auvergne region of France, where some 3500 Jews were rescued from the Nazis during World War 2. My latest book Ten Rogues, published in 2020, tells the unlikely story of ten convicts transported to 19th century Australia, who stole a leaky brig from Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) and sailed it across 10,00 kilometres of ocean to Chile without so much as a map or a chronometer.

I still think of myself as a journalist. I make no claim to be an academic historian, and I try to write in an accessible and conversational style. My main focus is on telling a story, the more dramatic the better. I have a weakness for cock-ups, hence the first two books. To my mild surprise, book number three might just about be described as inspirational.