The Peak

Sure to be the debut thriller of 2025, The Peak is a nail-biting and unputdownable read, a powerfully taut, gripping, and fast-moving international thriller. The story weaves themes of friendship, love, and betrayal with the ruthless geopolitics of China's rise, set in the last 24 hours of the world as we know it.

'Now I'll tell you what happened, as best I can. No spin. No agenda. If I get something wrong, it's not because I'm being evasive. It's simply because I'm still trying to understand what happened today... It's to explain, as best I can, what Sebastian has done, and why tomorrow when you wake up, it will be the end of the world.'

Political hatchet man Charlie will do anything to protect Sebastian, a government minister and his best friend since their brutal private school days. Having risen to power and prominence through international diplomatic postings and then the rough and tumble of Australian politics, they are as close as brothers—or so Charlie thinks. Both keep a secret that lies at the very heart of their relationship—a secret that, in one way or another, will change the world.

But then a single phrase in Mandarin is spoken in Sebastian's ear, and he does the unthinkable. As Charlie tries to piece it all together—from their youth spent in Hong Kong to the recent past in Beijing and Washington—things in the outside world start to fall apart. Planes can't land, the phone lines go down, and the power is out. Then the secret intelligence services come knocking. Charlie wonders, what the hell did Sebastian do?

From the jostling streets of Hong Kong to Beijing's shadowy halls of power and the backstabbing Machiavellian workings of Parliament House in Canberra, The Peak is a powerful, propulsive, and nail-bitingly tense international thriller. Written with extraordinary insider knowledge of China, the realities of global power, and the inner dealings of the Australian Government, The Peak offers the authenticity and moral complexity of a Le Carré novel and the narrative power of an Australian Robert Harris.