Sydney, Australia
Forty-five years of writing
military history
true crime
crime fiction
biography
children's books
television drama
Journalist, television scriptwriter and travel writer. Crime fiction under the name James Dunbar.
The First Anzacs
Military history
Rain Shadow
Television
Wendell Sailor
Biography
Watto
Biography
Twisted River
Crime fiction
Tunnel Vision
Crime fiction
Tunnel Rats vs The Taliban
Military history
Tunnel Rats
Military history
The Last Snake Man
Biography
Snitch
True crime
Perfect Criminals
Crime fiction
No Need For Heroes
Biography
Mole Creek
Crime fiction
Breakers
Television
A Sappers’ War
Military history
Apartment Living
Non-fiction
The First Anzacs
The incredible untold stories of Aussie and Kiwi combat engineers in WWI
Sappers are always among the first in and the last out of any combat, and the Gallipoli landing was no exception. The official histories say otherwise. Charles Bean recorded an infantry officer as the first Australian ashore on 25 April 1915, and the army has been slow to revise it since.
Drawing on soldiers’ diaries and firsthand accounts, this book follows the engineers from Anzac Cove to the Western Front and the Middle East: clearing wire under machine-gun fire, tunnelling beneath the German lines to plant mines, building the roads, bridges and walkways the following troops depended on, and putting down their tools to fight as infantry when it came to that.
With
George Hulse
Published
31 March 2026
Publisher
Allen & Unwin
ISBN
9781761473227
Sapper stories
Four books about Australian army engineers — Gallipoli and the Western Front, the Cu Chi tunnels, and Afghanistan.
The First Anzacs
2026
How the Australian Combat Engineers (sappers) were written out of history and cheated out of their just rewards (Out on March 31).
Tunnel Rats
2011
How Australian sappers (Army engineers) were the first to discover and explore the underground city at Cu Chi in the Vietnam war.
A Sappers’ War
2013
How the rest of the sappers fared in Vietnam, following their motto of Facimus et Frangimus -“we make and we break”.
Tunnel Rats vs The Taliban
2015
Australian Sappers in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban, dealing with IEDs and Russian mines and destroying opium factories.
Crime
Two Danny Clay capers, and the darker novels written as James Dunbar.
Mole Creek
2011
A murder made to look like suicide and a mystery from the Vietnam War lead to a string of killings in present day Tasmania, as a ruthless assassin sets out to protect a potentially world-changing secret.
Perfect Criminals
2018
Someone is murdering movie scriptwriters and Danny Clay, and his Vietnamese sidekick Xan, need to find out why before they are targetted.
Tunnel Vision
2019
Danny and Xan fly to Saigon to help an old friend but trip over a people smuggling sex ring delivering young girls to Sydney.
Biographies
Sportspeople, soldiers and one very well-known snake handler.
No Need For Heroes
2011
The original Tunnel Rat tells of life in Vietnam, the horrific murders of his daughters, and his life of healing.
Wendell Sailor
2010
The controversial rugby codes dual international tells all.
Watto
2014
The Australian all-rounder’s rise and rise and his battles with injuries.
The Last Snake Man
2019
The amazing life story of renowned snake-catcher and showman John Cann.
Television
Close to two decades writing Australian drama — an outback series for the ABC, a late-night backpacker comedy shot at Fox Studios, and a Bondi teen serial that ran to 430 episodes.
Rain Shadow
ABC · with Tony Morphett
Two vets in dry-land farming territory grapple with a terrible secret.
Crash Palace
Fox / Sky
Bonking, boozing, British backpackers in Sydney. One of Australian TV’s “lost series” – or is it?
Breakers
430 episodes
A Bondi teen drama that ran here and on the BBC — the first Australian teen serial with a permanent First Nations character.
Everything Else
THE KOALA BOOK
Karri the Koala has to deal with being different — when he drops he bounces.
THE KOALA SEQUEL
Karri the Koala is back — and he has to deal with abandoned pets taking over the Bush.
APARTMENT LIVING
The book that launched the Flat Chat apartment living website and newspaper columns.
The Power of the Word
DECEMBER 2025: Jimmy Thomson is a journalist, and as author of 15 published books, a crime novelist, military historian and biographer. He has also written for TV, and is a frequent guest on radio and TV
On top of that, he is a travel writer and occasional tour guide and edits the travel website mildrover.com, and the apartment living website Flat Chat (flatchat.com.au).
Jimmy has worked as a TV scriptwriter in Australia and Los Angeles, having created or co-created three successful TV drama series. As a comedy writer, he has been nominated three times for the Australian Writers Guild sitcom awards.
He holds an MA in Writing from Swinburne University and teaches Australian Literature: Page to screen at Boston University (USA)’s Study Abroad program in Sydney.
Twisted River, his second novel under the name James Dunbar was published this year by Echo Publishing and he is currently working on a third James Dunbar novel, Blood Moon, a sequel to Mole Creek, his first Dunbar novel, also commissioned by Echo.
Meanwhile he is finalising a military history (co-written as Jimmy Thomson) for publication in March 2026 by Allen & Unwin.
Jimmy is married with an adult son, was born in Scotland and has worked in newspapers there, in London, Kenya, New Zealand and Australia.