Curate’s Egg

"A spicy, sharp page-turner from a shrewd observer of our life and times." Robert Drewe

Percy’s prose is pacey, racy, juicy and witty. Who better to write about sexy trysts, dodgy deals and Perth crooks, than one of Australia’s top criminal lawyers? Jacqui Lang Editor, Starfish Magazine

The Curate’s Egg – Synopsis

Legend has it that an ambitious young curate was once asked to have breakfast with the Bishop.  The Bishop noticed that the Curate was having difficulty eating his boiled egg (which was in fact rotten) and inquired of the Curate as whether anything was wrong with it.  The Curate responded by saying that there wasn’t, and that it was in fact "quite good in parts".

In the heady climate of the year 2000 Perth, Western Australia is on the cusp of a remarkable resources boom.  Times are good, and things move quickly.

Unassuming 34 year old accountant turned mining analyst Declan McKenna has a thriving one-man business and is sought out by numerous mining companies looking to float on the Stock Exchange.

McKenna has always considered himself both a reputable and moral person, albeit without any pretensions to sainthood.

His girlfriend (former teacher turned interior designer) Andrea Baxter is a quiet and withdrawn girl.  Prior to taking up with McKenna she had a chequered past and was the victim of a number of personal disasters none of which were her fault.

One weekend on a working trip to Sydney promoting a new mining float Onan Resources, McKenna’s life changes forever.  An unexpected clandestine tryst with the fiery and demanding mining journalist Catherine deVaux, turns into a situation from which McKenna finds it difficult, despite his best endeavours, to extricate himself, and a chance meeting with a dubious Asian stock market player leads to him being wrongly charged with insider trading.

The Curate’s Egg traces the juggernaut course of McKenna’s struggle with his conscience, deVaux, Andrea, and the Court case, through to a frantic and bewildering final climax in Bali in 2001.

The parallel with the parable of the Curate’s Egg is complete by the conclusion of the novel, but its ramifications far from completely resolved.