Stephen Ramay

It will be made into a film.

So this is his breakthrough after all those years of writing brilliant crime novels that didn't sell.

Tony Jordan is such a wonderful writer.

She really deserves to be thought of more highly than she is.

I agree.

She deserves to be up there.

The ones I'll mention in passing, also Australian novels, are The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith, which is about the end of the silent film era and the beginning of motion pictures.

Very enjoyable book and he's a very smart Australian man who happens to live in the United States.

Bruni, novel by Heather Rose, set in Tasmania.

Also a little bit futuristic and very enjoyable.

You'll read it and you'll wonder who all the characters are actually based on.

Who is the Premier?

Who is the Prime Minister?

I've spoken to Heather about this a fair bit and I have a very good idea about who the Prime Minister is.

I'm not saying anything more.

All I'll say, it's a comeback.

And the other one I would mention is Rowan Wilson's novel, Daughter of Bad Times.

Like Bruni, it's also a novel that's set in the very short-term future but is relevant to everything that's going on in the world today and turning the world in general, unfortunately, into a less happy place.

I wasn't on the panel that year, but yes, he won the Vogel for his first, and I think still best novel, The Roving Party.

And I think Daughter of Bad Times is his fourth novel.