Looking for Trouble by John Marsden

John Marsden has been looking for trouble most of his life and managing to find it. He spent so much of his time at school on the detention room that a teacher offered to name it after him. When he left school he dropped out of four different university courses in five years, while trying more jobs than are found in a CES office. At one stage he found himself working alongside Australia's most notorious drug boss; at another, guarding Australia's oldest house against ghosts and vandals; at another, hiding on a hilltop spying on a factory. He has worked in abattoirs, orchards, pizza shops and morgues.
   Eventually he made his way into teaching and began a satisfying and rewarding career working in schools in New South Wales and Victoria. But tthe publication of his first book changed his life again and he is now a full-time writer. He has enjoyed enormous popularity among young readers, with most of his books already in their fifth or sixth print-runs. Looking for Trouble is his eighth novel, and was sparked by a desire to write a 'realistic adventure story for young readers, one they could believe in'.