RESURRECTION by Roger Simpson (Simon & Schuster, $26.99)
The first time “was pretty terrifying”, admits Roger Simpson. The longtime writer-producer, who has been a cornerstone of the Australasian television industry for half a century, isn’t referring to chucking in his job at a top Auckland law firm in the early 1970s to try TV writing, moving abroad with no job, or anxiously waiting for audience feedback.
He’s talking instead about going deeper inside the head of a character he’s known since the early 1990s. A character who looks like a real-life friend and can’t help but remind him of the most important woman of his life. That’s Jane Halifax, a middle-aged psychiatrist in Melbourne. Or Halifax f.p. as she’s better known to millions of television viewers. And now, readers.
“I’ve never before gone inside Jane’s head like I did when writing says Simpson, talking about his first novel starring a beloved
