I enjoyed "The Red Chief" as a kid and recently re-read it. Way before the coming of white men to Australia, there were many tribes of aborigines. The Gunnedar tribe had waned in power and was in danger of being violently assimilated by other neighboring tribes. The young Red Kangaroo works against the corrupt mismanagement of the tribal elders as he grows up, and eventually becomes the Red Chief and saves the tribe.

Along the way are wonderful descriptions of aboriginal tribal life and how they gathered food, hunted, and made war. The book is an exciting story for teenagers, but is also interesting for adults. I didn't actually buy the set - I have a single book. It is readily available on the used markek ....

I found "Trapping the Jap" as an interesting war book, written in 1942 when Australia and New Zealand were expecting a Japanese invasion. He writes about three armies landing on the north, east and west coasts of Australia. The six books in the set are Shoot to Kill, Sniping, Guerrilla Tactics, Trapping the Jap, Lurking Death and The Scout. Sniping and Lurking Death include experiences by Ion and others in World War I. His famous book about his experiences in WWI is of course "The Desert Column".

"The Scout" is one of a set of six specialist military books in the "Australian Guerilla" series, written by Ion "Jack" Idriess over the period 1942 to 1943. He drew on his many years of Australian "bush" and First World War experience for these volumes, which were written as training manuals. They are now extremely hard to find, with the exception of "The Scout", which is a low-quality re-print by Paladin. The content is still relevant today, and includes much information not covered by more recent similar works.

Idriess wrote more than 50 books over a period of 42 years to 1969.