title: Alex Hammond (author)
text: # Alex Hammond (author)
  
  Alex Hammond (born 25 December 1975 in Johannesburg, South Africa) is an Australian crime fiction writer. He is also published under the name A. W. Hammond.
  
  ## Life
  
  In 1981 he emigrated to Australia with his family. He graduated in Law/Arts from Melbourne University in 2001 and worked for several law firms before becoming an editor and web manager for the University of Melbourne and later RMIT University.
  
  ## Author
  
  In 1997, 1998, and 1999 he wrote several short stories for Inferno! Tales of Fantasy & Adventure, a publication of Black Library and Games Workshop. The short stories were, The Demon Bottle for issue 1, The Emperor's Grace for issue 3, A World Above for issue 6, Ancient Lances for issue 11, and Rat in the Walls for issue 14.
  
  His first novel, Blood Witness (Penguin 2013), is a contemporary crime thriller set in Melbourne featuring defence lawyer Will Harris. It was short-listed for a Ned Kelly Award for Australian Crime Writing in 2014. It and its sequel, The Unbroken Line (Penguin 2015) were optioned for a TV Series.
  
  Of his third novel, The Paris Collaborator (Echo 2021), The Sydney Morning Herald said he "artfully constructs this historical thriller within a paranoid and desperate city, creating plenty of twist and tension." The novel is set in German-occupied Paris and follows former schoolteacher Auguste Duchene as he searches for missing people in the days before the battle for the city's liberation.
  
  