Book Review by Brian Peachey
WHEN I reviewed the book, Light River, which Archbishop Barry Hickey
launched, I wrote: “Hal Colebatch has done it again! He has proved
himself – if proof was necessary – to be one of Australia’s leading
poets. We in Western Australia are fortunate to have in our midst such a
towering literary figure.” 
WHEN I reviewed the book, Light River, which Archbishop Barry Hickey launched, I wrote: “Hal Colebatch has done it again! He has proved himself – if proof was necessary – to be one of Australia’s leading poets. We in Western Australia are fortunate to have in our midst such a towering literary figure.”
It is important to also remind readers that Light River, his seventh book of poetry was awarded the WA Premier’s prize for poetry.
His latest novel, Counterstrike, is his 21st published work. It has been described as a thriller of ideas. It is an action story that is also literate and sophisticated.
Woven together are lyrical descriptions of Lighthouse and Bottle-Opener islands (Rottnest and Garden Island), the Swan River at Nedlands and the imaginary islands that lie further west, just beyond the sunset, combined with international intrigue and a tender love story.
The temptation – which confronts most reviewers – is to tell much of the story. It is sufficient to say that it begins with Harry Godwin, a solicitor, part-time University tutor, enthusiastic war-gamer, and frustrated would-be naval officer, and his friend Toby Bowen, sailing in a dinghy to the outer islands.
They fall in with Monty Montgomery, whose boat, the Rampant Richard, may remind some of the late Frank Baden-Powell (one of my fellow students at St Patrick’s Boys School) whose famous yacht, Dirty Dick, was named after his theatre-restaurant.
Another West Australian identity, whom I recognise in the story, could be my friend the late Professor Leslie Marchant, who appears as Professor Mercator, a former tanker-officer turned maritime historian, to whose memory the book is dedicated.
Colebatch has an extraordinary gift for vividly evoking the atmosphere of Rottnest and Garden Island, and the almost other-worldly quality that seems sometimes to touch them – the yellow moon over deserted Tompson Bay in winter, the plump little sanderlings running in the last ripples on the beach at “Bottle-Opener island” and quokkas lolloping under the revolving beams of the lighthouse at night.
As it unfolds, Colebatch weaves an incredible storey that will be of great interest to those who have participated in war games, but also to those who fear or see the possible consequences of the conflicts in the world. The outlines gradually emerge of a political conspiracy to weaken the alliance with America, part of a wider-ranging plot against the whole “Anglosphere” by way of the manufacture of false history. The end result may possibly be World War III. At the same time, an isolationist President has been elected in America. The terms in which this is discussed, subtly but unmistakeably, underline the parallels between past and present.
There is a final, unforeseen climax in which the many threads of the plot come together. Although the atmosphere is very much Colebatch’s own, there are touches here reminiscent of both Arthur Ransome and Frederick Forsyth.
I highly recommend Counterstrike as an intelligent thriller of ideas, one of the first books to grapple with the growing problem of false and manufactured counter-knowledge. It is a warning about the technique of planting conspiracy theories, and fostering paranoia under the mantra of “keeping an open mind.” As one character puts it, “If you keep an open mind some people will throw all their garbage in it.”
I should not comment on the ending, which is for the reader to judge.
Counterstrike
By Hal G P Colebatch
Published by Acashic Books
247 pages – Price $24.90 – Available via Acashic books online – www.acashic.com.