BARRY W METCALF Author Writer Novelist

'Hi, Martin Mitchell here. 

 

'The question I’m most often asked is, ‘When did you first become an agent for the Strange & Obscure Cases Unit, and what did you do before that?’

 

'Before joining SOC, I was a secondary school teacher. In 1996, when I grew disillusioned with that work, I applied for a position with the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. Although I thought I might be too old to be a field agent--ASIO was recruiting from the under-30 age group--I’d been confident that, if I was rejected as an agent, my computer skills would get me a job working as part of their support staff. Anyway, I scored an interview and was soon aboard a flight to Canberra, the location of ASIO headquarters.

 

'Almost immediately upon finishing three days of psychological and aptitude testing--the longest and toughest exams I’d ever undertaken--I was whisked into a dingy office in the basement of Old Parliament House and confronted by Gavin August Byrne, the current head of SOC. He’d seen something in my test results that he liked. He interviewed me, seconded me to his department and dispatched me on a case--of sorts.

 

'My first assignment--what Gavin liked to call a ‘trial run’--was to return to my old job and investigate a series of bomb threats currently plaguing the local secondary college. I wasn’t thrilled by this--‘How exciting could it be?’ I’d asked myself--but it turned out to be a test of my investigative skills, my perspicacity and my courage in the face of a maniacal, if somewhat demented foe. Pleased with my results, Gavin assigned me my first real assignment--a series of bizarre murders in Adelaide--and the rest is history.

 

'So, that’s it in a nutshell. My advice to everyone out there is to go after your dreams. You never know where they might lead you.

 

Look for Claire and me--she’s younger and hot!--in ‘Broometime Serenade’, on sale soon.'