Adrian d’Hagé – soldier, scientist, author and theologian.  No stranger to adventure, he has fought in the jungles of Vietnam, where, after a prolonged engagement with a regular North Vietnamese Army heavy machine gun company, he was awarded the Military Cross.  It is, he says, a medal he wears on behalf of the diggers who fought so courageously alongside him. 

d’Hagé researches his novels in the far flung corners of the globe, where he takes the reader anywhere from the depths of the Amazon and the Guatemalan jungles to Lake Titicaca on the border of Bolivia and Peru.  

Often referred to as “Australia’s Indiana Jones”, like his alter ego, Dr Henry Walton Jones, Jr.,  Dr d’Hagé also holds a doctorate  - in International Relations on the Middle East.  Through the eyes of CIA agent Curtis O’Connor and the stunning Guatemalan archaeologist, Aleta Weizman, readers can find themselves diving in Italy’s Lake Como or in subterranean caves under the Great Pyramid; or being pursued astride a Ducati racing motor bike in the soaring snow-capped massifs of the Swiss Alps, or breaking into an art dealer’s gallery in Venice in search of stolen masters.  He is pictured here (at left) on the shores of the Pacific in Lima, Peru, researching "The Inca Prophecy". 

As a Brigadier and counter-terrorist and intelligence expert,  Dr d’Hagé oversaw Australia's military security planning for the Sydney Olympics.  His degrees in mathematics, physics and chemistry, including oenology (wine chemistry) have given him a deep insight into horror scenarios like the weaponising of Ebola and attacks on nuclear facilities.  On another plane, his degrees in theology have enabled him to probe the intrigues of the Vatican.

His passions include jogging, hiking in the Alps, sailing, music and wine.  d'Hagé's interest in wine led him to take on a B App Sc (Oen) at Charles Sturt.  As part of that degree, he is seen here in the Hunter Valley's Pepper Tree laboratory (at left)                                                                   and pulling the long hours in the winery.

Taking up another sport late when in his 50s, and by no means a gun skier, he has successfully qualified in the Austrian Government exams as a ski instructor: “Schilehrer Anwärter” - pictured in 2018 (above) on a Giant Slalom practice course in the Austrian Alps at 6,000 feet above the little village of Alpbach - under the watchful tutelage of Herr Johann Schneider, one of the finest instructors in the sport.  

An entertaining and accomplished speaker (he suscribes to the theory that a good speech must not only inform, but have a lighter side as well), d'Hagé is available to draw on his multi-faceted background, including the years he held a bookie’s clerks licence, swinging the bag for Jack Waterhouse at Royal Randwick.  

     And so to Russia!  

    d'Hagé's latest novel, "The Russian Affair" was released by Penguin Random House on 2 July 2018

Russian President Petrov is determined to restore his country’s dominance on the world stage at any price. In order to develop deadlier nuclear weapons, he recruits Ilana Rabinovich, a beautiful but lethal scientist, to infiltrate the Mossad and steal their research. What no one expects is for the Israelis to then assign her an even more dangerous mission of their own: to penetrate the US nuclear facilities in the deserts of Los Alamos. 

If the information falls into the wrong hands the results could be devastating. Especially as in the Hindu Kush, ISIS soldiers are also plotting to acquire nuclear weapons. It’s up to CIA agent Curtis O’Connor to stop them before it’s too late. From Russia’s secret nuclear city of Sarov, across the myriad canals of St Petersburg, to an assault on an ancient castle more impenetrable than Colditz, the chase is on.  

But with a corrupt Russian general, a femme fatale double agent and a very unpredictable US president waiting in the wings, is it only a matter of time until a war begins