The Winning Side

by Peter Corris

Charlie Thomas, born in a humpy camp in the 1920s, learns to fight early. He fights in the backblocks of Queensland during the Depression, and in the Middle East and the Pacific in World War Two.Charlie Thomas, decorated veteran, fights on in the cities and the country against racial prejudice, authority and his weaknesses. He has to fight. White Australia tries to keep him on the losing side in the boxing tents, pubs and gaols.Charlie Thomas fights for education, justice, hope and love - to make his side the winning side.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Peter Corris was an Australian academic, historian, journalist and a novelist of historical and crime fiction. His first novel was published in 1980. Corris is credited with reviving the fully-fledged Australian crime novel with local settings and reference points and with a series character firmly rooted in Australian culture, Sydney PI Cliff Hardy. As crime fiction writer, he was described as "the Godfather of contemporary Australian crime-writing".

He won the Lifetime Achievement award at the Ned Kelly Awards for Crime Writing in 1999 and was shortlisted for best novel in 2006 for Saving Billy and in 2007 for The Undertow.