Stephen Johnson is a journalist, TV producer, kayaker and wanderer who now plots thrillers from his home on the Tamaki River in Auckland.

His debut novel, Tugga’s Mob, was inspired by three seasons in Europe as a tour guide on double-decker buses in the ‘80s. Tugga’s Mob was a finalist in the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards for Best First Novel. It was written in a motorhome nicknamed Kwozzimoto while driving 33,000 kilometres through a dozen countries and more than 100 campsites. An attempt to escape work created a new passion and career.

The second crime fiction novel, Boxed, was published in November 2021 and is set in the world of animal rights activism and the Melbourne media.

Stephen’s first historic novel, Peace Stick, goes behind the Iron Curtain during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. It’s a story of innocence and hope as two East German schoolgirls deal with a world on the edge of a nuclear war. The novel was inspired by a woman who now lives in Auckland.