The Troublemaker - Paperback

by Maxwell Stuart Sims (Author)

There is nothing pleasant about being eleven in Mount Gambier and suddenly have your mother and sister disappear to another state, and to have a foul-tempered bitch take your mother's place. It is even less pleasant when no-one explains what the hell is going on. Being dirt-poor doesn't help, either, and being forced to leave school at 14 to take a menial job just compounds the misery.So it was with Mike Pitt, who eventually 'escaped' to the city and journalism, but never losing the frustration of simply not knowing.After 17 years of "the not knowing is driving me crazy", he returns to Mount Gambier, ostensibly to confront his long-estranged father but with the primary objective of checking into the death of a friend whose fall from the local mountain was deemed an accident.What follows is police obstruction, local government furore, murder, family reconciliation, loving a beautiful woman (married, unfortunately) and corruption in political places.

Author Biography

About the author: Maxwell (Max, if you value your life) Stuart Sims was born in Mount Gambier. He went to the Helen Street Infant School, the Wehl Street primary school, the Penola Area School and Mount Gambier High. He studied electronics at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and worked in that field for more than a decade before switching to journalism, both newspaper and freelance. Then he joined Crawford Productions as a staff writer on the Homicide, Division 4 and Matlock Police series. Three years later saw him as PR/publications manager with the Victorian Health Commission and later a projects officer with the Victoria Police. He played baseball for Caulfield and Malvern, was an A-grade pistol shooter, flirted with skydiving (retired scared) and was a captain in the Army Reserve. He lives in Melbourne with wife Vanessa and their children Todd and Stuart.