Ruined Castle

True life story of search for missing son, Jamie Neale, and the aftermath of his return from twelve days lost in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. Erudite and witty eye-witness account of roller coaster ride of emotions as Jamie returns from the dead. Then father, son and media guru stew up a mind-boggling PR disaster out of the most warm hearted story to come out of Australia in a generation. Despite fulfilling my pledge to donate my media earnings to the people who searched for and cared for my son, I was widely smeared with the false allegation that I had demanded half my son's media earnings and was motivated by greed. The truth is much more complicated, but the book provides e-mail transcripts to back my version of the truth, in stark contrast to the weaselly 'sources say' accounts of my detractors. The book delineates the complex relationship between father and son and the interaction between three generations of our family and the continent of Australia. The story also casts its cold eye over the relationship between the public and what they read in their papers. It is a tale which begins as a sad desperate search for a well-beloved son, happily resolved into a triumph of grit triumphant over adversity. Then all falls apart, like the ruined castle of the title, as two high minded fools fall out, not over money (honest!) but over the ethics of striving to do the right thing in a land where good intentions invariably fly back to smack their good intenders in the eye. Check out ruinedcastle.com for alternative extracts and further background info.