SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE

'Brilliant, fresh and compulsively readable'
ANN PATCHETT

'A blazing mystery . . . tremendous'
GUARDIAN

'Masterful storytelling'
WASHINGTON POST

'Gloriously orchestrated . . . kaleidoscopic'
IRISH TIMES

'A thrilling success'
WALL STREET JOURNAL

An epic tale of unsettlement, history, myth, art and love - and of a small boy lost in the Australian desert from the prize-winning author of The Night Guest and The High Places.

In September 1883, in a small town in the South Australian outback, six-year-old Denny Wallace goes missing.

As a dust storm sweeps across the landscape, the entire community is caught up in the search. Scouring the desert and mountains, the residents of Fairly - newlyweds, farmers, mothers, artists, Indigenous trackers, cameleers, policemen - confront their relationships with each other and with the ancient land they inhabit. A land haunted by many gods - the sun among them, rising and falling on each day in which Denny could be found, or lost forever.


PRAISE FOR FIONA MCFARLANE

'I can't think of another writer working today who I admire more'
KEVIN POWERS, AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE YELLOW BIRDS

'An extraordinary writer'
MICHELLE DE KRETSER, AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF SCARY MONSTERS

'McFarlane has a gift for cutting into a story at precisely the right angle'
THE TIMES

'An intelligent and distinctive voice . . . a marvel'
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

'An exceptionally fine writer'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

"A blazing mystery set in the colonial outback . . . The writing is tremendous . . . This is a beguiling novel, not just of ideas about history and place but of fiercely beautiful translations" - Guardian

"A sensitive, slow-burn panorama of society in colonial Australia. Moving persuasively between a vast, impressively diverse array of characters, young and old, incoming and indigenous, privileged and deprived, she lets us listen in on their private (often competing) hopes and desires as the community pulls together to hunt for the boy. The result is moving and masterful - rich slices of life made vivid by the old-fashioned nitty-gritty of flesh-and blood character-making" - Daily Mail

"Ambitious . . . McFarlane amplifies her theme in ways that are often touching and ingenious . . . its style is at once spare and attentive to detail, and Fiona McFarlane has a sharp eye for historical injustices" - Times Literary Supplement

"A thrilling success . . . A novel full of mystery and wonder" - Wall Street Journal

"Gloriously orchestrated . . . kaleidoscopic . . . This book earns its place by the simultaneous seriousness and playfulness of its commitment to all the voices in the contested times and spaces of its setting. McFarlane knows what she's doing, and she does it exceptionally well" - Irish Times

"This novel is also made hypnotic by its wonderfully atmospheric dreaminess" - Mail on Sunday

"McFarlane's treatment of the dust storm has a simple Steinbeckian majesty . . . Her prose is full of detail, comparable to Claire Keegan's keen-eyed novellas, Foster and Small Things Like These" - Sunday Times

"Ambitious . . . McFarlane's figures emerge in intricate detail, defined by their petty desires, their moral imperfections, and their relationship both to the cataclysm of colonization and to the grandiosity of the landscape and the sun" - New Yorker

"Masterful storytelling . . . Tension mounts every time tragedy looms or disaster strikes. We read on with queasy dread when the spotlight falls on frightened and exhausted Denny . . . But we also read on captivated by the novel's beautiful prose and polyphonic voices, and marveling at both its epic scope and rare intimacy" - Washington Post

"In precise, often glorious prose, the novel affords each character, including little Denny, a rich interiority, even as the landscape itself - a terrain layered with significance and myth for aboriginal peoples, while for Europeans "civilization" there appears thin - provokes awe . . . With this remarkable novel, McFarlane establishes her place in the firmament of Australian letters, reworking and expanding the imaginary of its early years" - Harper's

"Mesmerising . . . It's a story with the quality of a myth or fable, that somehow manages to seem both restrained and infinite at once. And if that's all sounding a bit hoity-toity, be assured it's an engrossing mystery" - Sydney Morning Herald

"This tale of a farming community's search for a missing child offers intimate human drama, ruminations on the intersections of art and life, and a sweeping, still relevant view of race and class in Australia . . . A masterpiece of riveting storytelling" - Kirkus

"Taut, rich, intelligent and mesmerizing" - ABC News

"With a child missing in remote Australia, this may sound like any recent 'outback noir' thriller - but McFarlane's beautifully written second novel has much more in common with Lanny by Max Porter or Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor: all vibrant, otherworldly stories of a small community in flux, discombobulated by a singular tragedy" - Guardian Australia