This wonderful, simple, charming book is impossible to categorise and, we think, impossible not to absolutely love. Albert the platypus escapes from Adelaide Zoo in search of a place where humans never venture and animals still rule. Described as True Grit meets Watership Down please do read the Opening Extract.
This is a story of the Australian Outback, a duck-billed platypus on a quest, and what it means to be a hero. Albert is a duck-billed platypus, who has escaped from a zoo in Adelaide to look for somewhere that may, or may not, exist: Old Australia, a place where humans never venture, and animals still rule. Albert knows it's somewhere in the middle of the Outback - not the ideal habitat for a water-loving animal - but now he's lost and close to death. He's saved, though, by Jack, a pyromaniac, sardine-loving wombat, who promptly gets him into even worse trouble taking him to a marsupial-only bar run by a kangaroo called O'Hanlin, getting him drunk and then burning the bar down. And this is just the beginning of Albert's adventure...A glorious romp of a novel, Albert of Adelaide is a story of friendship, loyalty and heroism. And marsupials. Pacy and poignant, it's completely original - a book for people (and animals) of all ages.
Howard Anderson has lived a varied life: he flew with a helicopter battalion in Vietnam, worked on fishing boats in Alaska, in the steel mills of Pittsburgh, as a truck driver in Houston, and a scriptwriter in Hollywood. After earning a law degree, he became legal counsel for the New Mexico Organized Crime Commission He is currently a district attorney in New Mexico, where he defends Mexican nationals charged with crimes north of the border. Albert of Adelaide is his first novel. He has never lived in Australia.
