Bereft

by Chris Womersley

Overview

A CRIME UNSPEAKABLE

Australia, 1919. Quinn Walker returns from the Great War to the New South Wales town of Flint: the birthplace he fled ten years earlier when he was accused of a heinous act.

A LIE UNFORGIVABLE

Aware of the townsmen's vow to hang him, Quinn takes to the surrounding hills. Here, deciding upon his plan of action, and questioning just what he has returned for, he meets Sadie Fox.

A BOND UNBREAKABLE

This mysterious girl seems to know, and share, his darkest fear. And, as their bond greatens, Quinn learns what he must do to lay the ghosts of his past, and Sadie's present, to rest.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780857386564
Publisher:	Quercus Publishing
Publication date:	12/22/2011
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	862,947
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Chris Womersley was born in Melbourne in 1968. His fiction and reviews have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Granta New Writing and The Age, and In 2007 one of his short stories won the Josephine Ulrick Literature Prize. Bereft is his second novel.

Editorial Reviews

Set in 1919 Australia, Womersley’s moving second mystery chronicles the return of Sgt. Quinn Walker, fresh from the killings fields of France, to his hometown of Flint, New South Wales, whence he fled 10 years earlier under horrific circumstances. Back then, Quinn’s father found 16-year-old Quinn in an abandoned shed next to his raped and murdered 12-year-old sister, Sarah, clutching the bloody knife used to kill her. The older Walker drew the obvious conclusion, but Quinn was able to slip away without getting arrested. Quinn now hopes, even after so much time has passed, to identify the real culprit, but first he must persuade his mother of his innocence. Womersley, who won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Crime Fiction for The Low Road (2007), uses lyrical language to enhance a familiar story (e.g., “he dug a hand into his tunic to touch his revolver as if it were a crucifix that, through his caresses, might alert God to his anxieties”). (July)

Publishers Weekly

Battered and disfigured from fighting at Gallipoli, Quinn Walker heads back to his drought-stricken hometown in New South Wales once World War I is over. No jubilant homecoming awaits him, however, for ten years earlier at age 16 he fled after being accused of his sister's murder. Now his mother lies dying of the Spanish influenza that is rampaging across the world, and he must visit her secretly to avoid being chased down and hung. Australian Womersley (The Low Road) tells an unremittingly bleak story steeped in gothic traditions. Narrator Dan Wyllie's Australian accent anchors the somewhat ghostly events in reality. Though at times difficult to listen to, this audiobook will appeal to readers interested in rural Australian life following World War I.—Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo

Library Journal