Stephen King called international crime writer Michael Robotham an “absolute master” so it’s no surprise that he’s sold millions of books all around the world. His first thriller, The Suspect, was snapped up in more than twenty countries in just three hours and the superlatives have kept on rolling in ever since.

Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and today Michael talks about his latest book, When She Was Good, and expands on that remarkable career, first as a journalist, then as a ghost writer, and now as an award-winning bestselling novelist.

Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:

Michael's remarkable beginning in journalismTen years of ghost writing in preparationBidding war on debut novel The SuspectThe Secrets She Keeps - the story behind the TV seriesHow Sept 11 changed everythingWhy he's still a 'newbie after 15 novels

Where to find Michael Robotham: 

Website: https://www.michaelrobotham.com/

Facebook: @MichaelRobothamAU

 Twitter: @michaelrobotham

What follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.

But now, here’s Michael.

Jenny Wheeler: Hello Michael, and welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us.

Michael Robotham: Thanks Jenny.

Introducing Michael Robotham

Jenny Wheeler: You grew up in rural Australia, in country towns, and I've read online a funny little quip where you said there were more dogs than people and more flies than dogs in the places you grew up in. Then you went straight into talking your way into a cadetship on a Sydney daily. When you went there for that job interview, had you ever been to Sydney before?

Michael Robotham - international best seller

Michael Robotham: No. I had to come down to Sydney six times and catch what was then the North Coast mail train, which was an overnight train that took twelve hours to get from my hometown to Sydney. I was seventeen when I first caught that train overnight and went for my first job interview. I had never been in a building over three stories high and I had never been in a lift before by myself. I don't think I'd been in a lift with anyone else either.

When I got to the Fairfax building, who were the publishers of the Sydney Morning Herald and the Sun, I stood outside the lift and I didn't go inside the lift because I wasn't sure how to work it and I wanted someone else to get in and I'd follow them. I didn't know whether you had to shut the doors yourself, it terrified me. These security guards, I could see them laughing, wondering when this hay seed is going to get into the lift. But I did. I waited for someone else to get in, and that was my very first job interview.

Getting started in Sydney

There were 6,000 applicants for 12, I can't remember if it was 12 or 18 positions. Journalism had become a very sexy profession ever since Woodward and Bernstein broke Watergate. I was very lucky to get one of those cadetships and one of my fellow cadets was Geraldine Brooks who went on to be a Pulitzer Prize winning author and a very famous journalist as well.

Jenny Wheeler: How did you manage to walk your way in there? What did you have on your side?

Michael Robotham: I don't know. You had to go through a whole series of interviews which involved doing a current affairs test and general knowledge tests and writing essays and that narrowed the field down. But when I went for my final interview with the editor, I'd pretty much been told I hadn't got the job because there had been people who had been applying for years and narrowly missed out, and it was their turn.

Before I went into the final interview, the guy who was coordinator said listen, you've done incredibly well to get this far. Don't be disheartened, try again next year, but you're not going to be one of my recommendations. So I went into the interview not nervous at all because I thought, well,