Author/publisher David McGill launches his blog

Flagging My First Blog

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Hallelujah! Somewhat late in the piece, I start blogging about my books and books I read. Please allow me to introduce myself, I am not a man of wealth and fame, I am a word-worker, identified by my sometime patron Tony Simpson as another example of what he does so well, a New Zealand social historian. To this I add that I sometimes write fiction, even faction, for usually there is research in my stories. 

My latest book is a good example. The Death Ray Debacle is a novel about the true story of Victor Penny employed by the government in 1935 to develop a ‘death ray’, working on Somes Island under 24-hour armed guard. This was deemed necessary after he was attacked by ‘foreign agents’ at his Takapuna place of work. At the time the entire world was trying to develop radar and lasers and Victor was showing promise. I picked up his story when I wrote a history of Matiu/Somes Island called Island of Secrets. My research was only possible because of PapersPast and it was considerably boosted by an old acquaintance Dr Robert Mann putting me in touch with Victor’s son Evan, who sent me a long and invaluable email about Victor’s life and inventions. Further useful research came out of the Somes chapters on alien POWs, notably the Nazis who were particularly active in the Auckland German Club from about 1934. If you go to my Books section of my website, www.davidmcgill.co.nz, you will see the publicity for the book about Victor featuring the man himself surrounded by the Union Jack, the Swastika and the Soviet flag. It was happenstance that I feature flags just when John Key has got us all pondering which one we want for New Zealand. My book indicates plans to have the Swastika raised here, maybe others too.

The Death Ray Debacle is narrated by a fledgling fictional detective who is as naive as we all were about foreign intentions for us. Again I had valuable research assistance from my mentor when I wrote No Right to Strike, a history of the Police Association and Guild, Police historian Sherwood Young. He put me on to information about the way Special Branch was surveilling the Auckland German Club a year before Scotland Yard, under direct control of the Commissioner of Police. I also learned of the modus operandi of detectives as we made our first tentative steps towards what became our Security Intelligence Service.

The style of my book is in the spy mode I read a lot of, from Graham Greene and John Le Carre through to Joseph Kanon and Charles Cumming, but also as always with a distinctive Kiwi angle. Indeed, this may be New Zealand’s first spy story.