Seconds from Impact

Chris is a late starter to the world of writing. "I've always loved reading, have my late Mother to thank for that, and I will remain ever thankful to her for the lifetime of enjoyment this provided - thrillers, military fiction and history, even science fiction, anything with a good story. I always thought I had the skills to write, but suspect I was too busy reading to get around to it. There was always an excuse why it hadn't happened." Chris was born in Liverpool, home to the Beatles and the famous Liverpool Football Club, and moved to Australia in 1976 as a teenager with his family. "What a difference to the UK," he says now. "Australia was so different, so much more opportunity, and the weather was heaps better." He completed school and joined the Army Reserve, later serving in the Australian Regular Army. "There was so much about military life I liked. But, this was the 1980s, remember. Our involvement in Vietnam was long over and I found myself in a peace-time Army, preparing and practising. We did a lot of waiting," he laughs. "Hurry up and wait was the standard joke at the time. I was never going to do 20 years in such circumstances, so I took a discharge and went back to University, eventually graduating as an Economist at the ANU." From there, Chris spent the next 30 years in Finance roles, for a number of public sector employers. He studied for a Masters degree in Business Administration, raised a family (he has two sons and a grandson) and has lived in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Hobart. "I always believed I could write a good novel, but just kept putting it off. In 2012, I put my head down with a terrific plot, one that had been building over the years we were fighting terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Seconds from Impact was born." Chris now lives in Queensland and has just released his second novel in the Jake Walker series, Rendition. He is writing a third novel in the series, Meltdown.