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Dear Reader,

It is with much pleasure I introduce to you the first in my four-book series MEN OF THE OUTBACK. The setting moves from my usual stamping ground, my own state of Queensland, to the Northern Territory.

The Northern Territory is arguably the most colorful and exciting part of the continent. Even today it is frontier country. The Territory comprises what we call the Top End and the Red Centre. The Top End has as its capital Darwin, the gateway to Australia and a hop, step and a jump from Southeast Asia. The chief town of the Red Centre is Alice Springs, which lies in the middle of the fantastically colored MacDonnell Ranges, the setting for one of the stories. The Top End lies well above the Tropic of Capricorn. The Red Centre is the desert, the home of our most revered monuments, Uluru and Kata Tjuta. Thus we have in a vast area two extreme climatic and geographical divisions. World Heritage–listed Kakadu National Park, crocodiles and water buffalo to the Top, the Dead Heart to the Centre (though not dead at all, only lying dormant until the rains transform it into the greatest garden on earth).

The pervading theme of the series is family. It can be a difficult and provocative subject because many highly dysfunctional families are out there—fighting, loving, hating, struggling, exploiting, betraying. Family offers endless opportunities for its members to hurt and be hurt, to love and support or bitterly condemn. What sort of family we grew up in reverberates for the rest of our lives. Were we blessed with a rock-solid foundation or left with memories that plague us? One thing is certain—at the end of the day, blood binds.

I invite you, dear reader, to explore the lives of my families. Not all of it is invention. Such people as I write about do inhabit families. What sort of family is yours? Now and then.

Margaret Way