Dublin Zoo

Dynamically blurring fact with fiction, Dublin Zoo seamlessly weaves its three distinct sub-parts into one compelling narrative spanning the period from the outbreak of WWI until the early years of WWII. Distinguishing Dublin Zoo from many other books, Michell creatively manipulates selected historical events of the era to fit into Harold Bradshaw’s past and present. The result is that, so adapted, these events actually become part of the plot, making for an engrossing and compelling story

Readers are first introduced to Harold, his parents Albert and Rita, and their impoverished home in the northeast English midlands. In a classic rags to riches to rags story Albert builds a business empire only for it to be wounded in 1925 and then crushed four years later by the Great Depression. When Rita is subsequently murdered and the broken-hearted Albert commits suicide, Harold, by then nineteen, takes revenge on those responsible. He flees to London beginning the book’s second act. Early into the young Harold’s new life, he falls in love with a woman in her thirties named Katrina. But the affair ends when Harold is convicted of the murder of two mafia soldiers. The final act takes place with the onset of World War II, when Harold is released from prison into the clutches of a secretive British unit and press-ganged into undertaking a dangerous clandestine mission in France revolving around issues to do with the French Resistance and a paramount British strategic objective.

John Michell is a full-time writer after serving 33 years in Australian foreign service as an Australian diplomat from 1979-2012, spending 21 of those years abroad. Michell is also a distinguished lawyer who remains admitted as a barrister and solicitor to the Australia Capital Territory Supreme Court. Since 2017, he has spent all his time writing different stories, with Dublin Zoo being his debut book. Michell currently resides in Brisbane with his family.