Peter Breen’s Books

‘Candidates Disease – A Political Memoir’

A serial candidate for election to state and federal parliaments for nearly 50 years, Peter Breen looks back on a political career which was sometimes controversial but never dull. Between bouts of his political illness, Peter wrote a few books, practised law (‘writing that pays the bills’) and worked as an adviser to crossbench senators in the Australian Parliament. His memoir is a rare insight into what happens behind the scenes in a representative democracy where the gene pool for the major parties is shrinking while minor parties receive more votes, more influence and more than their fair share of chaos and disorder.

Labor politician John Newman is shot dead in the driveway of his home at Cabramatta in Sydney’s western suburbs. His fiancée, Lucy Wang, witnesses the crime. Police charge three Vietnamese Australian men who live and work in the Cabramatta area with Newman’s murder. Murder Principals is a powerful and timely story of legal and political intrigue that critically examines the evidence against Australia’s first alleged political assassins.

The abduction, rape and murder of bank teller Janine Balding in 1988 is a terrible crime – a wasted young life with so much potential. Her killers were children, and without diminishing the horror of what they did, Life as a Sentence questions a justice system that treats child offenders acting impulsively the same as adults who cold-bloodedly plan their crimes. The book also asks whether Stephen ‘Shorty’ Jamieson, a victim of foetal alcohol syndrome and one of the accused, is the right ‘Shorty.’

Australia has inherited a legal system that guarantees to politicians supreme law-making power. Provided they comply with the Australian Constitution, members of the Commonwealth and States’ Parliaments have unlimited authority to reduce or extinguish fundamental human rights. Advance Australia Fair looks at the history of the many failed attempts to introduce a human rights charter or bill of rights into Australian law. Why is Australia the only common law country in the world that fails to protect the basic human rights of its citizens?

First published by Allen & Unwin in 1986, The Book of Letters has sold more than 50,000 copies, and it remains a perennial best-seller in Australia. More than just a guide to writing effective letters, the book is an important starting point for anyone with a legal problem. Often the right letter will nip the problem in the bud, but the wrong letter could inflame the situation and expose the writer to a damages claim. Don’t write a word without consulting the latest edition of this must have book.

‘Prodigal Pilgrim’

Prodigal Pilgrim is an epistolary journey to the Marian apparition shrines of Lourdes, Fatima, Garabandal and Medjugorje. The author corresponds with Pope Francis along the way, urging the Church to approve the Medjugorje apparitions, which began 40 years ago. Without Church approval, Mary’s prophetic warnings are too easily dismissed as mass hysteria, delusion or some form of magic. Mary offers humanity a lifeline, says the author, an alternative to David Attenborough’s observation that things can only get worse for the Earth.

‘Dear Mr Putin’

This book is the printed version of an ebook of the same name first published in 2022 on Amazon Vella by En Route Books in the USA. It questions the Russian president’s religious motives for attacking Ukraine when Christians are supposed to love their neighbors. Using the literary device of the epistolary inquiry, the author asks Mr Putin if he’s aware of the Marian prophecy at Fatima between Russia’s two revolutionary wars of 1917—the promise of Russia’s conversion and peace in the world.

‘MyLetters: Artificially Intelligent Correspondence’

Why should every letter or email you write begin from scratch when the letter you want (or something similar) has almost certainly been written before and found its way into Peter Breen’s letter writing app? Instead of worrying about what to say, find the right precedent in three easy steps, and adapt the letter or email to your particular circumstances. And then check your letter against Peter’s ten basic rules for avoiding defamation problems.