Melbourne is burning.
When small-business fire-safety contractor Callan Rooke stumbles across a criminal scheme feeding the city's illicit tobacco trade, one mistake pulls him and his family into a brutal war of arson, extortion and organised crime.
Shopfronts go up in flames. Ledgers vanish. Lawyers arrive before the smoke clears. And every choice draws the fire closer to home.
As tobacconist Sahar Naderi fights to keep criminals from using her shop, detectives race to untangle a network built on fear, silence and dirty money. But the deeper Callan digs, the more he learns that this war is not fought only with petrol and guns. It is fought with paperwork, blackmail, surveillance and the price ordinary people will pay to protect the ones they love.
Set against the streets, shopfronts and industrial shadows of contemporary Melbourne, Learning a Trade is a topical and high-stakes crime thriller about ordinary people trapped inside a criminal economy that thrives behind locked shutters and burning buildings.
Callan understands fire systems, alarms and compliance. He knows how buildings fail. What he does not know is how quickly his own life can be turned into evidence, how easily a stolen laptop can become a weapon, or how efficiently organised crime can use lawyers, forged records, surveillance and public shame to destroy a family.
As the violence escalates, Callan, his wife Jessa, their daughter Elodie, Sahar, and a growing circle of frightened witnesses must decide whether survival means staying silent, running, or learning how to make the trade itself too expensive to continue.
Dark, gripping and terrifyingly plausible, Learning a Trade is a commercial Australian crime thriller for readers who enjoy contemporary organised-crime fiction, urban suspense, morally tested families, legal pressure, police investigations, and stories where ordinary people are pushed to their breaking point.
About the Author :
Robert G. Pranic is an Australian author based in Melbourne and the independent publisher behind Cinarp Industries. A prolific novelist with a broad and growing catalogue, he writes across crime, thriller, detective fiction, science fiction, speculative fiction, historical drama, romance and westerns.His fiction often centres on ordinary people under extraordinary pressure: families threatened by violence, investigators pursuing justice, outsiders caught inside corrupt systems, and individuals forced to make difficult moral choices when survival and loyalty collide. His work combines commercial storytelling with emotional stakes, grounded conflict and a strong interest in the systems that shape human behaviour.Before focusing heavily on fiction, Robert built a long professional career in information technology, systems thinking and enterprise architecture. That background informs many of his novels, particularly his interest in hidden networks, institutional pressure, criminal structures, technological consequence and the fragile points where ordinary people collide with larger forces.He publishes through Cinarp Industries and continues to build a substantial catalogue of Australian independent fiction for readers who enjoy bold, accessible and high-stakes storytelling.
