Resources
The Trojan Dog - Story Outline
<Back

'I should ask your department's accountant whether he's missing $900,000.' This is the anonymous message that will change Sandra Mahoney's life.

When a powerful but unpopular bureaucrat is accused ot theft and computer fraud, Sandra is convinced that the charge is false. But how to track down the culprit when almost anyone could be an enemy? In her search for the truth, Sandra finds herself in a battle of wits against an elusive and unscrupulous opponent, a battle in which no-one's allegiance can be taken for granted.

Sandra has gone back to work in a government department after several years of casual work, and time spent looking after her son Peter. She's chosen her own job over the chance for a year in America with her husband, Derek.

'I'm a wife on pause,' she tells her new colleague, Ivan Semyonov. Ivan is an eccentric member of the IT staff, who steals Sandra's pot plant in order to make a digital copy of it, and return it to her as a gift.

In spite of this, Sandra and Ivan become friends. Their friendship is helped along by Ivan's affection for Peter, and his willingness to help Peter with his reading problem.

This friendship, and the place Sandra is making for herself in the department, are tested when the unpopular branch head, Rae Evans, who has given Sandra her job, is accused of stealing $900,000. Evans is suspended and quickly isolated. No-one takes her side, but Sandra is convinced she's innocent. Hesitantly at first, she sets out to try and track the money through a grant to a women's computer self-help outfit, and to find out who has the strongest motive for theft.

An unlikely source of help comes from Detective Sergeant Brook, ill with leukemia, but hanging onto his job with the federal police. After Sandra is involved in a bad car accident, Brook is given her 'case'. In spite of his scepticism, he becomes keen to solve it.

Top

Resources
The Trojan Dog - Themes
<Back

The subject of The Trojan Dog is corporate greed and a public servant playing fast and loose with tax payers' money.

The novel explores how easy it is to succumb to greed when working for the federal government, the country's biggest spender, and how seductive the temptation to crime can be. The government is an attractive target for people who have always thought of themselves as honest, as well as the criminal underworld.

The city of Canberra is an important character in the novel. Canberra is a stratified city. The lines between legal and illegal, right and wrong, are clearly drawn, yet at the same time remarkably easy to slip across. The slipperiness and invisibility of electronic crime also seems to fit well with Canberra - the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, or pretending not to know.

Another important theme is loyalty and betrayal - who to trust when it's so hard to work out the difference between enemies and friends. Sandra Mahoney has to balance the gratitude she feels towards Rae Evans, and her liking for Ivan, agaist the suspicion that they might be using her, or worse.

Top

Resources
The Trojan Dog - The Title
<Back

I'm often asked about the book's title,' Dorothy Johnston says. 'It's meant to be enigmatic, though the story does contain a real dog, a stray that Peter finds and is determined to keep. The title is meant to carry an Australian flavour, with echoes of The Drover's Dog.

But it draws its meaning largely from a play on the Trojan Horse computer program. In the early days of the Internet, before the Internet became a fast lane for the porn industry, a group of American feminist hackers built a program using naked women as a lure, and sent it around to a host of government departments. While the men were looking at the naked women, the program was busy stealing their files and passwords. This became known as one of the original Trojan Horse programs, and in my story Sandra learns to use one.

The inaugral Davitt Award, named after Ellen Davitt (1812-1879), who wrote Australia's first mystery novel, was announced at the Sisters in Crime Australian Crime Convention, October 2001

Sisters in Crime website.

Top

<Back