Outback Conflict

Mick Mathews has enviable outback skills, and when international criminals invade his personal space, it forces him to outwit nefarious, highly trained drug runners. Alexandra Beaumont, a university biology student, drives to Pilbara in Western Australia to study unique flora and fauna. Alex finds out all too soon that the outback is not for the fainthearted. Initially, Mick and she collide. Mick sees Alex as a potential hazard, a worrying liability. However, Alex has some unique skills of her own, which Mick begins to admire. Together, they use their combined expertise to thwart six hardened and sadistic killers intent on making millions of dollars out of illegally imported heroin. Helped by Mick's red dog-Bess, a well-trained dingo cross-Mick and Alex have further advantage as Bess has the wild dog instincts no man can ever possess. A flooded river, capture, torture, and bitter fighting to endure-all seems impossible to overcome. However, with ingenuity, outback skills, and masterful maneuverability, Mick and Alex begin their reluctant fight for survival. During a brief interlude, they have a welcome reprieve, a blissful night spent on top of an escarpment where they bathe with warm water from a shallow gnamma hole. After capturing two of the brutal thugs and imprisoning them in a large gnamma hole, Mick, Alex, and Bess head for the abandoned airstrip where the remaining drug runners await the plane's arrival with its illicit cargo. Mick disables the plane, renders their vehicles out of action, and wounds two criminals. Alex is captured. Mick and Bess free her. After a deadly fight with the remaining two thugs, they capture and incarcerate them with their fellow criminals and radio the authorities. Mick and Alex are rewarded by the government and have found love in the most unlikely place-the rugged Australian outback.
About the Author: Margaret Mingay Phillips, a Queenslander, descended from pioneering old families. Both grandfathers were sea captains whose ships regularly sailed the east coast of Australia. Her paternal grandmother, Annie Mingay, became the first white woman to settle in Cooktown, Queensland, in the 1800s, having to wear a firearm when venturing off the property. Her maternal grandmother's husband, Richard Phillips, died on board his ship; Elizabeth eventually remarried and lived on a cattle station with Margaret's mother, Grace Phillips. After her parents' divorce, Margaret (12) attended boarding schools, where she found the opportunity to pursue her love of books and writing. She married and moved from Brisbane to Perth, where her husband set up a business. Divorced with three young children and no relatives in Perth, she found solace in writing. Acquiring a diploma in Professional Romance Writing from the Australian College of Journalism, she used her novel Outback Conflict for some of the lessons, receiving praise from her tutor. She met her second husband - Gary Phillips, life member of the 4WD Club of WA - when she bought a new Toyota Land Cruiser. They travelled extensively in Australia's vast outback, Margaret always writing with a portable typewriter Gary installed in front of her in the Land Cruiser. She wrote several short stories, published in magazines and a book. Becoming editor and secretary to 4WD Club organisations kept her busy. She joined the Australian Society of Authors and Fellowship of Australian Writers. She wrote a comedy, Travelling with the Dog, for The Four-Wheel Driver's Guide, plus 'A Wisp of Fate', published in a book of short stories. When Gary retired from his four-wheel-driving instruction business, their love of travelling Australia continued. Margaret wrote her second novel, a romance set in Australia and England, where the wild coast of Cornwall inspired her.