Cotton Trash (ePub)

Cotton Trash is the gripping third installment in the eco-thriller series featuring investigative journalists Jack Miller and Sharon Davis. Set in rural Australia, the duo receives an anonymous tip about unusually high cancer rates in their community. Their relentless investigation uncovers a web of corruption involving politicians, bureaucrats, and a powerful multinational pharmaceutical corporation. At the heart of the scandal is a dangerous herbicide used in cotton farming, leading to a deadly cover-up that puts Jack and Sharon in grave danger. Inspired by the documentary 'The Monsanto Papers,' this thrilling tale of David versus Goliath echoes the spirit of 'Erin Brockovich,' as the journalists face increasing threats while fighting for the truth.

Robert Maddison is the pen name of Dr Bill Phillips, a former senior executive in the Federal environment bureaucracy, then, for three years, Deputy Secretary General of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands based in Switzerland. For nearly 20 years he has been a freelance consultant and CEO of the not-for-profit organisation, RiverSmart Australia. In short, he's seen it all (or almost!) and is now using these real life experiences to help shape eco-thrillers: a sub-genre with a focus on corruption in the environmental arena-a seemingly untapped market. While these are works of fiction some of the background information on which the storylines are created is based on real life situations and scenarios. Born in Lake Cargelligo in western NSW, Bill Phillips now resides in Canberra although he spends lots of his time working in rural areas with landholders, government agencies and community groups with an interest in river and wetland management. Bill Phillips previously published scientific works and the popular science book Koalas: the little Australian's we'd all hate to lose in 1988. Since then he has progressively become a specialist science communicator, working as a workshop facilitator and editor/compiler of scientific reports and other documents-converting them to plain English. Today he uses these skills for working extensively with media contacts to promote the work of RiverSmart in both print and electronic media, in maintaining several web sites etc. Fiction writing is a way to entertain an audience while also passing on some insights into the realities that go on behind the scenes in the sometimes ugly politics of the environment.