CANBERRA author Jack Heath, 37, has been writing for as long as he can remember.

His debut novel, “The Lab”, was published when he was just 19, now more than 40 books later – his newest novel, “Headcase”, has hit the shelves.

A spy thriller set in Houston, Texas, “Headcase” is the fourth in the series featuring cannibalistic problem solver Timothy Blake.

When a Chinese astronaut is found dead in a NASA training environment, the CIA calls Blake in to investigate.

“The CIA is concerned that the astronaut might have fallen out of the sky and that there might be a secret Chinese spacecraft surveilling the US, but when Blake turns up he quickly realises that something more complicated than that is going on,” Heath told “CityNews”.

As Blake hunts the killer, he discovers something sinister is happening, something connected to a kidnapping seven years ago, to the technologies being developed at NASA, and to the serial killer known as the Texas Reaper.

“Blake’s main objective is that he wants to somehow get a hold of the body [of the dead astronaut] and eat it – because he’s a cannibal – but in the course of his own private goal, he starts to uncover some other crimes going on caused by some people even more dastardly than he is,” said Heath.

Readers were first introduced to Blake – a deeply insane yet brilliantly clever CIA agent – in “Hangman” in 2018.

Now Blake’s back with “Headcase”, the fourth book in Heath’s grisly crime thriller series for adults.

“Blake has a few things that make him endlessly fun to write about, one is how regularly he’s in a situation and responds to it in an insane way, so he’s unpredictable to the reader but he’s unpredictable to me,” said Heath.

“A book like this could become quite dark, and gloomy, and dire, but because of Blake’s wry sense of humour it keeps him fun to write and read about.”

The fact that Blake is telling the story from within a psychiatric hospital gives the novel a “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” feeling, Heath said.

“As a character Blake has always been a bit insane, so it makes sense that he may need some kind of psychiatric help.

“But it occurred to me that if Blake sat down in front of a doctor and said he’s a cannibal that had been recruited by the CIA, they would assume he was delusional and would try and cure him of his delusions rather than of his compulsions, and that scenario was just so funny to me.”

When it came to researching the book, Heath sought advice from Dr Richard Harris, the anaesthetist and cave diver who played a crucial role in the Tham Luang cave rescue mission.

“I had to talk to someone who had an understanding of medicine, and I found myself talking to Dr Harris of the Thai cave rescue mission,” he said.

“He helped me out with some of the research for the book, and he was kind enough to read the draft.”

The series of Blake books were Heath’s first attempt at writing for adults. 

He’s also a successful children’s author, and has written 35 books for children and young adults.

“I learned a lot from writing children’s fiction,” Heath said, himself a father of two. 

“Kids get bored easily and they have more distractions around them so if you are writing a book and even if one page of it is boring, the younger readers will switch to TikTok.

“Adults tend to have more tolerance for suspense so even when I write for adults, I have that adult-writing instinct of keeping the pace up and making sure something dramatic happens on each page.”

Frustrated by the slow pace in most teenage fiction, Heath started writing his first novel, “The Lab”, while in high school. 

“At Lyneham High School I started getting exposed to dreary teen fiction, and that was the point when I thought that I could do better than this,” he said.

“I started writing ‘The Lab’ in Year 8, and I finished the first draft when I was in Year 11 or 12 at Narrabundah College, then I sent it off to be published, and the rest is history.”

According to Heath, Canberra is kind to both authors and readers.

Its readers appreciate quality writing and its authors value intelligent readership.

“Part of it is that it’s a great town for readers because it has the type of weather that encourages people to stay inside, but also Canberra has a wonderful variety of people living in it in terms of its professions and life experiences,” he said.