Michael Robotham
Before becoming a novelist, Michael Robotham was an investigative journalist and the pseudonymous author of 10 bestselling nonfiction titles. He is the winner of the Ned Kelly Award and has been shortlisted for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. He lives in Sydney with his wife and three daughters.
Born in Australia, Mr. Robotham grew up in small country towns that had more dogs than people and more flies than dogs. He escaped in 1979. In 1993 he quit journalism to become a ghostwriter, collaborating with politicians, pop stars, psychologists, adventurers and show-business personalities to write their autobiographies. Twelve of these nonfiction titles were bestsellers with combined sales of more than 2 million copies.
His first novel, The Suspect, a psychological thriller, was chosen by the world’s largest consortium of book clubs as only the fifth International Book of the Month, making it the top recommendation to 28 million book club members in 15 countries. It has been translated into 22 languages, including some he’s barely heard of.
His second novel Lost won the Ned Kelly Award for the Crime Book of the Year in 2005, given by the Australian Crime Writers Association. It was also shortlisted for the 2006 Barry Award for the Best British Novel published in the US in 2005.
Mr. Rothobam’s subsequent novels The Night Ferry and Shatter were both shortlisted for UK Crime Writers Association Steel Dagger in 2007 and 2008. Shatter was also shortlisted in the inaugural ITV3 Thriller Awards in the UK and for South Africa’s Boeke Prize. In August 2008 Shatter won the Ned Kelly Award for Australia’s best crime novel.
More recently, Bleed for Me, his sixth novel, was shortlisted for the 2010 Ned Kelly Award. His latest novel, The Wreckage, has won universal praise and was described by Nelson De Mille as “one of the best novels to come out of the chaos of Iraq.” In 2012 he will release his eighth novel, Say You’re Sorry, a dark psychological thriller that marks the return to center stage of clinical psychologist Joe O’Loughlin.
