Joseph Musaphia, born in 1935 in London, was one of the most successful and prolific New Zealand playwrights of the 1970s—80s, his best-known stage plays being Victims (1973), Mothers and Fathers (1975) and Hunting (1979). He had previously written more than 120 rsdio scripts, screenplays, lyrics and work for television. Since 1980 he has worked mainly as a journalist. 'Charlie Wellman', from which this extract is taken, is his second novel; his first, Let Us Be Naked, was published by Quoin Press in 1997.