Scott Fitzgerald once made the famous observation that there are no second acts in American life. Perhaps. But Mike Carlton disproves this thesis as the journalist now emerges as a military historian of real note.

This conclusion can be drawn readily from the quality of his work in his second major book, First Victory — 1914 — HMAS Sydney’s Hunt for the German Raider Emden which joins an earlier work Cruiser (about the loss of HMAS Perth in the Sunda Strait in 1942), as adding considerably to our understanding of the contribution of the Royal Australian Navy in the first and...