Michael Duffy is an Australian journalist and novelist. Duffy presents ABC Radio National's Counterpoint with Paul Comrie-Thomson, and writes for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Sun Herald.[1] He has written two novels, The Tower and The Simple Death, part of an ongoing series about detective Nicholas Troy of the Sydney Homicide Squad and his colleagues Jon McIver and Susan Conti.[2] Duffy also a biography of John Macarthur, as well as joint biography and analysis of the rivalry of Mark Latham and John Abbott titled "Latham and Abbott". Of the latter, Tony Smith of the Australian Public Intellectual network wrote, "Michael Duffy so clearly analyses Mark Latham's strengths that even obtuse observers must appreciate how Prime Minister John Howard comfortably neutralised his opponent's appeal".[3]
Prior to becoming a journalist and writer, Duffy, edited Independent Monthly, a general magazine owned by Max Suich and John B Fairfax, from 1993 to 1996. Then he and his wife Alex Snellgrove set up a publishing company, Duffy & Snellgrove, that published the first books by Peter Robb, John Birmingham and Rosalie Ham. Other authors included Les Murray, Mungo MacCallum and John Olsen.[4] The company stopped publishing new titles in 2005.