Captain Starlight

The fifth book in the series features the two men known as "Captain Starlight". Both were bushrangers who travelled widely across the country in the second half of the 19th Century, and although their backgrounds and their crimes differed greatly, they are linked by their connection with a character from a novel. Frank Pearson was the first "Starlight who burst onto the scene in 1868, when he abandoned his practice as a doctor, stole a horse and took off on a bushranging spree that ended in a shoot out and the death of a policeman. Pearson was a very talented man: intelligent, well educated and well read, and a clever artist and composer. He was also a pathological liar with no moral compass whatsoever. He had so many aliases that we don't even know what his real name was. The other was Henry Readford, whose stunning theft of 1000 cattle was the inspiration for the fictional character "Captain Starlight" in Rolf Boldrewoods novel Robbery Under Arms.