About the Author

Tom Cole worked as an expert stockman on properties throughout northern Australia, as a repairman of the Overland Telegraph Line and manager a coffee plantation in Papua New Guinea before retiring at seventy-two years old. Born in England in 1906, Cole became a real-life Crocodile Dundee, renowned for an adventurous spirit that first brought him to Australia at the age of seventeen. Awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1994 for his contribution to history, his experiences inspired his collection of short stories Spears and Smoke Signals and his memoirs Hell West and Crooked and, its sequel, The Last Paradise.