Alex Hammond (author)
Alex Hammond (born 25 December 1975 in Johannesburg, South Africa) is an Australian crime fiction writer. He is also published under the name A. W. Hammond. Life. In 1981 he emigrated to Australia with his family. He graduated in Law/Arts from Melbourne University in 2001 and worked for several law firms before becoming an editor and web manager for the University of Melbourne and later RMIT University. Author. In 1997, 1998, and 1999 he wrote several short stories for Inferno! Tales of Fantasy & Adventure, a publication of Black Library and Games Workshop. The short stories were , "The Demon Bottle" for issue 1, "The Emperor's Grace" for issue 3, "A World Above" for issue 6, "Ancient Lances" for issue 11, and "Rat in the Walls" for issue 14. His first novel, "Blood Witness" (Penguin 2013), is a contemporary crime thriller set in Melbourne featuring defence lawyer Will Harris. It was short-listed for a Ned Kelly Award for Australian Crime Writing in 2014. It and its sequel, "The Unbroken Line" (Penguin 2015) were optioned for a TV Series. Of his third novel, "The Paris Collaborator" (Echo 2021), The Sydney Morning Herald said he "artfully constructs this  historical thriller within a paranoid and desperate city, creating plenty of twist and tension." The novel is set in German-occupied Paris and follows former schoolteacher Auguste Duchene as he searches for missing people in the days before the battle for the city's liberation. Bibliography. "Will Harris" novels "The Paris Collaborator" (2021)