Michael Robotham Books

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Author Michael Robotham was born November 9, 1960 in Casino, New South Wales. He would begin working at “The Sun” (a Sydney afternoon paper), it was a journalism cadetship, in early in the year of 1979. He would work for different papers in London as both a reporter and a sub-editor before he got a staff writer job at The Mail on Sunday in 1989. The highest he got working at this company was as features editor, before he resigned in 1993. In this job, he was one of the first to get to see the diaries and letters of Empress Alexandra and Czar Nicholas II that were unearthed in Moscow State Archives in the year 1991. He was also able to look at the files that Stalin had on Adolph Hitler, that had been missing for close to half a century and were found by a cleaner (they had been in a box that had been both misplaced and misfiled). Michael helped different people (either in politics, the arts, sports, and the military) write autobiographies in a ghostwriter role; twelve of the fifteen that he helped write became bestsellers in the Sunday Times (selling a total of over two million books). He went back to Australia in 1996 with his family and kept on writing full time. A partial manuscript for “The Suspect” was part of a bidding war, and would be translated into 22 languages and sell more than a million copies. All of his novels after have been translated into over twenty languages. He has three daughters.

Michael Robotham is an Australian author of crime fiction, who is perhaps best known for his Joseph O’Loughlin series of books, although he has also written standalone titles outside of his most successful series, as well as participating in collection of writing secrets from Australia’s leading crime writers called If I Tell You… I’ll Have To Kill You. Robotham has achieved both commercial and critical success, winning two Ned Kelly Awards for books in his Joseph O’Loughlin series, as well as the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger in 2015.

Michael Robotham was born in the town of Casino, New South Wales, in November 1960. He spent his time in school in his home state of New South Wales, and after he had finished his schooling, he eventually went into a career of writing, getting a cadetship at Sydney newspaper The Sun in 1979. Robotham spend 7 years at The Sun, then he made the move to London, England, where he continued his career in journalism in various publications, and eventually settling into a role at The Mail on Sunday as a feature writer. He spent 4 years at The Mail on Sunday, before resigning.

After his stint in journalism, Michael Robotham moved into more literary pursuits, and he worked in 15 biographies as a ghost writer across various genres such as sport, art and politics. He gained a lot of success in this field, with several of the books he worked on making it into the Sunday Times Bestsellers List, before returning to his home country of Australia in 1996.

It wasn’t until 2004 that Michael Robotham would get the big break under his own name, after the publication of the first book in the Joseph O’Loughlin series of books, The Suspect, after gaining a lot of attention two years prior at the London Book Fair. The book become a worldwide hit, and went on to sell over one million copies.

While The Suspect gave Robotham his first commercial success, it was the second book in the Joseph O’Loughlin series that gave him his first taste of critical success. Lost was published in 2005 as the follow up to The Suspect, and it won the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Writing that same year. He then followed up that up in 2007 with The Night Ferry, for which he was shortlisted for the same Ned Kelly Award, although this time he lost out Chain of Evidence by Garry Disher.

However, Robotham would again pick up the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Writing in 2008 for the fourth book in the Joseph O’Loughlin series, Shatter, his second time winning that award. Bleed For Me, the fifth book in the series, was published in 2010, followed by The Wreckage in 2011, Say You’re Sorry in 2012, Watching You in 2013, and Close Your Eyes in 2015.

Outside of the Joseph O’Loughlin books, Michael Robotham achieved more critical success, this time winning the 2015 Crime Writers’ Assocation Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel for his novel Life Or Death, beating authors such as Robert Galbraith, Stephen King and Belinda Bauer to the top prize.

Michael Robotham has written the “Joseph O’Loughlin” series and stand alone novels.

MICHAEL ROBOTHAM AWARDS

His novel, “Life or Death” won a CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel in the year 2015. He has won two Ned Kelly Awards for crime writing, once for “Shatter” in the year 2008 and in the year 2005 for the novel “Lost”.

BEST MICHAEL ROBOTHAM BOOKS

For those readers looking to get into novels by Michael Robotham, this section will help with that. It will go over the novels “Suspect”, “Lost”, and “Shatter”.

Suspect: This is the first novel in the “Joseph O’Loughlin” series and was released in the year 2004. Joseph O’Loughlin (a psychiatrist, who is based in London) has a perfect life. Or seems to. A gorgeous wife, a lovely daughter, and a practice that is doing well that he enjoys doing and brings compassion to it. He has Parkinson’s disease, which dims his future. After being called in to look at a murder crime scene, he finds that the deceased is someone that he once knew. He cannot tell the police what he knows. Joseph winds up telling one tiny lie that ends up being the biggest mistake that he will make in his life. He is caught in a web, one that he himself made.

Lost: This is the second novel in the “Joseph O’Loughlin” series and was released in the year 2005. Vincent Ruiz (Detective Inspector) does not know who wants him dead, or how he wound up in the Thames. Nor the firefight he got in, or how he got covered in his blood and two others. Mickey Carlyle’s (a missing child) photo is in his pocket, but Mickey’s killer is in jail. Ruiz put him there.

It is believed that Ruiz is faking amnesia, and he has nowhere to turn, besides Joseph. It is up to Joseph to help him retrieve the necessary memories and clear his name. They fight an internal affairs investigator that is certain that Ruiz is hiding something, not to mention the ruthless criminal that says Ruiz has got something of his that is impossible to replace. Ruiz’s memories come back and offer some interesting insights into a surprising discovery.

Shatter: This is the third novel in the “Joseph O’Loughlin” series and was released in the year 2008. The police have Joseph O’Loughlin stop a woman (who is named Christine Wheeler) from killing herself. He fails. Wheeler’s daughter comes to him and tells him that she would not have jumped off of the bridge like she did. She had a fear of heights and did not have suicidal tendencies.

He cannot shake the fact that he failed this woman. He gets driven by a need to figure out why she died. Joe goes on a search for the truth and is caught in a web of murders. All while he has to work on his marriage and his having Parkinson’s disease.

Michael Robotham FAQs

Q: What nationality is Michael Robotham?

A: The author Michael Robotham is Australian. He was born in the town of Casino in New South Wales.

Q: What was the first book Michael Robotham published?

A: Although Michael Robotham penned autobiographies as a ghostwriter, the first book published under his own name was The Suspect, which was published in 2004 and is the first book in the Joseph O’Loughlin series of books.

When Does The Next Michael Robotham book come out?

Michael Robotham doesn't seem to have an upcoming book. Their newest book is Before You Found Me / Storm Child and was released on July, 2nd 2024. It is the newest book in the Cyrus Haven Series.

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