Warren Reed is a former Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) agent who currently advises businesses on the geopolitics of globalisation with specific emphasis on Australia and the Asian region. A regular media commentator on espionage and terrorism, Reed is often sought out to comment on the human side of spying. Born in Tasmania, Reed undertook two years National Service in the Australian Army before completing a degree in Political Science and Business Administration from the University of Tasmania. In 1973, he was admitted to the Law Faculty of the University of Tokyo as an Australia-Japan Business Cooperation Committee Scholar. On his return to Australia, Reed consulted for a major Japanese trading house, before being recruited by ASIS and trained by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in London. His ten-year career in clandestine work focused on Asia and the Middle East, and he has lived and worked in Tokyo, Cairo and New Delhi. Reed left ASIS in 1987 and subsequently held the position of Chief Operating Office for CEDA. Fluent in written and spoken Japanese, Warren Reed's other language studies include Mandarin, Bahasa Indonesian and Arabic.
Warren Reed has a lifetime's experience in Asia and knows first-hand the world of modern spy craft. He has done readers a favour by putting his knowledge to use in his fiction. This latest novel pulls off the trick of being brisk-paced and absorbing, while also conveying larger truths about the new power game in Asia. I read it straight through. -- Jim Fallows, author of China Airborne and national correspondent for The Atlantic Warren Reed clearly demonstrates the worldview of a practitioner and not just an entertainer. Having said that Warren manages to do things many writers fail to do - he informs and educates whilst writing about a hidden world of intelligence practitioners that few understand. Warren Reed does understand. Try not to take this book to bed as it will be difficult to put it down and go to sleep. -- Dr Michael Kennedy, Senior Lecturer - Police and Criminal Justice, Western Sydney University A cross-cultural, transnational thriller written with an insider's knowledge of bureaucracy and intelligence trade craft which at the same time serves as a prop for something much larger - the attempt by China to seduce and manipulate its neighbours to create a new Beijing-led, world order in Asia. -- Richard McGregor, author of Asia's Reckoning. An Elephant on Your Nose is peppered with spy craft detail and a highly nuanced understanding of Japanese and Chinese culture and tradition that can only have come from Warren's own experience in the field as a deep-cover operative. The reader comes out of a Warren Reed novel wiser and heartily entertained. This is a grown-up spy thriller for the 21st Century. -- Ross Coulthart, Australian investigative journalist and author of The Lost Tommies