Thursday 13 December 2012

"Forty years catching smugglers" by Malcolm Nelson


Nelson has been a customs officer for (nearly) forty years from Rummager to Assistant Collector and this autobiography is based on the fifty or so talks every year he gives about his career. The oral flavour is preserved intact. It rambles.  The writing is poor both grammatically and stylistically. It has not been proof read.

I struggled to the end because it does have some interest. I guess we are all fascinated by smugglers and I have a tangential interest in his self-promoting stories of management as well. But I would have been embarrassed to write it.

December 2012



This review was written by

the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling 

and The Kids of God

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