David Astle has written two novels, Marzipan Plan and Book of Miles, plus three non-fiction works: Puzzled, One Down, One Missing and Offbeat Australia. Between books, he drives the world to delight and despair as Friday's crossword setter, DA, appearing in both The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Actor Geoffrey Rush, in fact, describes David as 'the Sergeant Pepper of cryptic crosswords - a complete mind fuck'. Which is possibly a compliment. As a feature writer, David has investigated luck, lying and fridge magnets, plus a hundred different topics for various magazines. He also reviews books for Radio National. David's short plays have been performed in both Sydney and Melbourne, while his short stories have won awards, including a trip to Beijing via Dublin as part of the James Joyce Suspended Sentence Prize in 2001. He is currently Mr Dictionary on the SBS game show, Letters + Numbers.