Hello Bernard, from Australia’s summer shores. There are so many things it would be great to discuss with you and we have corresponded in the past. Maybe that time will come. In the meantime I have simply to be satisfied with reading your consistently brilliant work; and that my daughter and my parents met you at Bovington and Warwick castle respectively during your recent tour. My daughter in particular has never understood my enthusiasm for Sharpe in particular, so I didn’t think she’d actually go when I suggested it to her. However, she found your talk a revelation and gushed with enthusiasm when she called to tell me about it; then forwarded her photo of the two of you. It was such a pleasure to hear her so inspired. I have just finished reading Crackdown as the first of your modern adventurer’s books. As an ex-soldier and having lived in the Caribbean I was hugely impressed by how well you nailed both the main character’s heroics and the Bahamian setting, style and mood. Certainly to have been faced with a similar situation (which isn’t at all that far from fantasy – my own experience could easily have come to something similar) the military mentality would have been equally as automatic and equally as challenged. To my knowledge you have not served in the military. In which case, how do you manage so well to get into the heads of those who have? And when are you likely to be downunder again? I’m inviting you to dinner to talk books, history, life and maybe even revisit the video game discussion. All the best, John PS – The Burning Land is superb!