Ten Rogues: The Unlikely Story of Convict Schemers, a Stolen Brig and an Escape from Van Diemen’s Land to Chile (Allen and Unwin 2020) is a swashbuckling, rollicking historical tale from Peter Grose, who is a former journalist, a literary agent (he set up Curtis Brown in Australia) and the author of three books examining true historical events. Ten Rogues tells the story of the grim reality of convict transportation from nineteenth-century London to Australia, in particular the details of ten convicts who managed to escape from Tasmania by stealing a leaking brig and sailing it across the Pacific to Chile without any navigational instruments.

The wonderfully amusing and old-fashioned cover gives some indication of Grose’s literary style: he writes with great authority and with the benefit of extensive research, but he also treats everything he reads with suspicion and a sense of fun, questioning the accounts of events (both official government records and personal anecdotal convict stories), with the result that the entire tale teeters on the brink of what might in fiction be suspected as an unreliable narrator. In this non-fiction story, it is more the case that Grose is candid about the probable inaccuracies and deficiencies of the existing accounts, and highly suspicious of the motivations of some of the people telling the stories. In this way, he provides a clear-eyed perspective that is not naïve but rather asks questions every step of the way.

The other important aspect of this book is its exploration of the possible illegality of the whole convict system, and its close connection to slavery. His ruminations on this topic, and his inclusion (as appendices) of official court documents discussing this very issue, provide thought-provoking reading and a real insight into the moral and ethical operation of Australia’s penal colonies.

The book is dedicated thus: ‘For all those who have suffered, and those suffering today, from the baseless belief that harsh punishment reduces crime and reforms criminals,’ a concept which threads throughout the entire book.

So what is the story about? Well, it centres on Jimmy Porter, a ‘loveable rogue’. Grose begins the book by stating: ‘It’s hard to know whether to like or dislike Jimmy Porter’ and this dichotomy plays out throughout the story as Jimmy grows up in the squalor of inner London in the early 1800’s, falls foul of the law, and is eventually convicted and transported to Australia. Most of the book is based on two actual diary accounts written by Jimmy, but there are huge discrepancies and inconsistencies even between his own stories – he is a liar, a schemer, a hero; he is generous, dangerous, caring; he is rough, tough and tender; he is all of these things – a complicated portrait of a man pieced together through painstaking research and the evidence of his own hand. He and nine other convicted felons saw their chance to escape from Van Diemen’s Land and took it, outsmarting the local constabulary, horrifying the local population and astonishing even themselves with their outrageous acts of derring-do. Through Jimmy’s eyes we see life as a convict in the early settlement of Australia, and while his failings are never minimised, we also come to like, respect or appreciate his cunning and feisty manner and his determination and persistence. This story is entertaining, informative, thought-provoking and humorous, and proves the maxim that truth surely is stranger than fiction.