I am Captain Thunderbolt
I am super excited to tell you my second historical novel is soon to be released.
I am Captain Thunderbolt - An amazing story of Fred Ward, alias Captain Thunderbolt, as told by Fred himself.
Many years of research and painstaking effort have been poured into this account which allowed me to get the story historically correct.
As in my first novel, Too Young to Hold a Gun, this too has been written in the form of a historical fiction. This allows me to portray the man's character and show my readers what he may have been like.
What made Fred Ward do what he did?
What motivated him?
Was he your typical bushranger?
Was he a family man?
Was he really married to Mary Ann Bugg?
Was he really as polite to the women he bailed up as the legend suggests?
Was he the Robinhood of the day?
Why was Thunderbolt Australia's longest reigning bushranger?
Why was he said to be Australia's most successful bushranger?
Who was Fred Ward the man?
Did he really escape Australia and travel to Canada and live to an old age?
Who was the man buried at Uralla?
All these questions and more will be answered.
I am Captain Thunderbolt will rewrite much of what you thought you knew.
I am Captain Thunderbolt will be hitting the shelves mid 2025, be sure to grab a copy.
What the critics are saying about I am Captain Thunderbolt:
Fred’s remarkable escape from the hell-hole of Cockatoo Island Prison is the subject of the dramatic first chapter of Peter Spencer’s meticulously researched and refreshingly original take on the whole saga, I am Captain Thunderbolt.
Dramatic? Oh yes. Written in the first person and arranged in concise chronological episodes in the outlaw’s career, it is virtually a screen play. The story is earthily unadorned, plausible, unashamed and generous in spirit.
We’ve all heard the maxim, “To really appreciate someone else’s point of view, we must walk a mile in their shoes.” Author Spencer insists we get into Thunderbolt’s boots, and walk, run, hide, swagger, brag, drink, dance, tell yarns, and gallop on “borrowed” thoroughbred racehorses! We become confidants in his loving relationship with Mary Ann, mates with his occasional gang members, fellow guardian and mentor for young Will Monckton, brazen hold-up specialists, cheeky tormenters of the inept troopers, and ever courteous to the ladies. Drawn in by his every word, we absorb every soliloquy, until his fatal encounter with Constable Walker and his heartbreaking and gory death in Kentucky Creek.
In this beautifully constructed plain-English novel, our Thunderbolt demonstrates courtesy, a wicked sense of humour, and oft-expressed frustration about not being able to give it all away and live a respectable life.
It’s a deeply personal story; we don’t sit back and study the subject like an entomologist with a pin stuck through a butterfly. No, we get to hear the words from his very own mouth, even though Thunderbolt was barely literate, because Peter Spencer has gone into the very soul of the outlaw and is speaking not about him … but for him.
Kent Mayo OAM, Hon Director of McCrossin's Mill Museum, Uralla, NSW
I am Captain Thunderbolt
by Peter Spencer
The life and times of Frederick Ward, alias Captain Thunderbolt, have become something of a publishing phenomenon. Much has been written, both good and bad, about this elusive outlaw of more than 150 years ago.
Peter Spencer’s new book I am Captain Thunderbolt is an historical novel based upon thorough research and reference to contemporary sources. Upon this factual framework, the author has woven a fine and compelling narrative, as told by Fred Ward himself.
Far from being a romanticised, superficial figure, Spencer depicts Fred Ward as a complex character, haunted by his past as an escaped prisoner from Cockatoo Island, and acutely aware of the discomforts and anxieties of living by one’s wits off the land, always moving one step in front of the law. He is concerned for his wife and children, often frustrated by his accomplices, and is rarely at ease, always on the alert for the despised troopers constantly probing for him. Yet he has an impish compulsion to be the elusive highway man, the “King of the Forest”, the gadfly tormentor of the police. It is almost inevitable that the story ends tragically.
The plot is authentically set in the sprawling landscape of colonial New South Wales; the bush, damp forests of the Barrington Ranges; the bountiful Narran Lakes in a good season; the broad black soil plains and the ragged New England ranges. The towns bear the evocative names of Quirindi, Collarenebri, Tenterfield, Uralla and dozens more. Not the accomplished places which we know today, but the struggling frontier settlements of the 1860s.
Peter Spencer describes these landscapes and places with the clear affection that can only be gained from them firsthand – and indeed, as Thunderbolt himself knew them.
Come for a wild ride on a spirited horse with Captain Thunderbolt. Meet the people who make up his world: his beloved wife Mary Ann and the children, the storekeepers, coach drivers, squatters, bush workers and townspeople whom he knew. Travel the dusty and lonely bush roads. Feel the heat of the north-west plains and shiver in the chill of the tablelands. And share his anguish, his discomfort and his longing for a quieter life – whilst keeping a wary eye out for the dreaded law.
Peter Chambers, New England Historian
Peter writes with the insight that comes from extensive research and also a passion to impart a sense of the man Fred Ward, his motivations and values, not just the bushranger. This is what makes “I am Captain Thunderbolt” a great read while also giving the reader a window into early Australian life as well as the escapades of a bushranger not many of us would have understood but for this book. Kate Reid
