Andrew Croome – June 12 2016

Andrew is a writer living in Canberra. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Melbourne. His first novel, Document Z, a retelling of the Petrov affair, won the 2008 The Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award and the UTS Award for New Writing at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. It was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book and the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. In 2010 Andrew was named a Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelist of the Year. After a research trip to Las Vegas, his second novel, Midnight Empire, was completed in Laos. Andrew’s articles and reviews have appeared in various publications, including The Age, The Australian and Meanjin. Andrew has worked as a computer programmer and creative writing tutor. In lean times, he has also supported his writing by playing poker. When not writing novels, he works as a freelance copywriter.

Document Z
Allen & Unwin, 2009; ISBN 9781741757439
Canberra, 1951, the height of the Cold War. Vladimir and Evdokia Petrov are among a group of new arrivals at the Soviet Embassy in Canberra. Both are party loyalists, working for the MVD, Moscow intelligence. Yet all is not well in the new city of Canberra. The atmosphere in the Embassy is tense and suspicious; the Ambassador resents their presence, and is secretly working to have Vladimir disgraced and recalled. In the meantime, ASIO are determined to discover who in this new group works for the MVD. Only three short years later, Vladimir has defected and his wife Evdokia is held prisoner at the Soviet Embassy, waiting to be transported back to Russia to face punishment or death for his crime. How did it come to this?

Midnight Empire
Allen & Unwin, 2012; ISBN 9781743311127
Las Vegas, Nevada. Young Australian computer programmer Daniel Carter has arrived at the heart of the American war machine – the drone program at Creech Air Force Base, Indian Springs. Naive, untested, but keen to make a difference, he is plunged headlong into America’s surreal battle against its enemies in the Middle East – a battle fought at a distance of 7,000 miles from a city where nothing is real. As geographic and political boundaries blur, Daniel enters into an unlikely romance with a professional poker player, Ania. But when the hunt for an Al Qaeda master-mind ramps up in the skies over Peshawar, and American pilots begin to die in the suburbs of Las Vegas, events take a devastating turn.