Robert Victor Macklin is an Australian author and journalist. Macklin began his writing career for the Courier Mail, later moving to The Age in Melbourne and then The Canberra Times in Canberra. In 1967 he became press secretary to Deputy Prime Minister John McEwen shortly before the death of Harold Holt when McEwen briefly became Prime Minister. In 1974 while working in the Philippines at the Asian Development Bank he began writing both fiction and non-fiction books, beginning with the novel The Queenslander. Awarded a Commonwealth Writer's Fellowship, he returned to Australia in 1975 and wrote The Paper Castle and Juryman, adapted by MGM to the film Storyville starring James Spader and Jason Robards. His non-fiction work includes 100 Great Australians, The Secret Life of Jesus, Jacka VC: Australian Hero, Fire in the Blood: The epic tale of Frank Gardiner and Australia's other bushrangers, Bravest: How Some of Australia's Greatest War Heroes Won Their Medals, the memoir War Babies, and Kevin Rudd: The Biography.