Awards

• Long-listed for Ned Kelly Awards, Best Crime 2019 (Australia)
• Long-listed for Voss Literary Prize 2019 (Australia)
• Short-listed for Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize 2019 (UK)
• Winner of Historia Award for Historical Crime Fiction 2021 (France)

Overview

On a beach not far from the isolated settlement of Sydney in 1797, a fishing boat picks up three shipwreck survivors, distressed and terribly injured. They have walked hundreds of miles across a landscape whose features—and inhabitants—they have no way of comprehending. They have lost fourteen companions along the way. Their accounts of the ordeal are evasive. It is Lieutenant Joshua Grayling’s task to investigate the story. He comes to realise that those fourteen deaths were contrived by one calculating mind and, as the full horror of the men’s journey emerges, he begins to wonder whether the ruthless killer poses a danger to his own family.

Full Product Details

9781925773965

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Reviews

`A riveting and brutal tale.' * Good Reading * 'A great work of fiction to prompt a further dive into the history books.' * Weekly Times * 'Although Serong's Preservation and Grenville's The Secret River differ in style, approach and period, they share both a gripping sense of narrative and an unflinching commitment to honestly portraying the bewildering complexity of early encounters between European settlers and indigenous Australians.' * NZ Listener * `Well-researched.' * Herald Sun * `One of Australia's most innovative and ambitious crime writers.' * NZ Listener * `Serong is a talented storyteller.' * Booklist * `Full of tension and menace.' `Serong's prose is evocative, his dialogue convincing.' * Sydney Morning Herald *

'A riveting and brutal tale.' * Good Reading * 'A great work of fiction to prompt a further dive into the history books.' * Weekly Times * 'Although Serong's Preservation and Grenville's The Secret River differ in style, approach and period, they share both a gripping sense of narrative and an unflinching commitment to honestly portraying the bewildering complexity of early encounters between European settlers and indigenous Australians.' * NZ Listener * 'Well-researched.' * Herald Sun * 'One of Australia's most innovative and ambitious crime writers.' * NZ Listener * 'Serong is a talented storyteller.' * Booklist * 'Full of tension and menace.' 'Serong's prose is evocative, his dialogue convincing.' * Sydney Morning Herald *

Author Information

Jock Serong’s novels have received the Ned Kelly Award for First Fiction, the Colin Roderick Award and the inaugural Staunch Prize (UK). He lives with his family on Victoria’s far west coast.

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