AustLit

'An Australian western set in the goldfields of Ballarat, The Death of John Lacey is a viscerally powerful story of greed, power and violence from the author of Snake Island.

''The writing is honest, rich and clean, and it made me feel so much. Too many writers fuss things up, but Ben tells it simply, which is so affecting.'
Sofie Laguna, author of Miles Franklin-winning The Eye of the Sheep

'He felt the lump of gold still in his pocket. He would find his way out of this place and leave his brother happy and he would etch his name into the red earth or be damned.

'John Lacey lusts for power and knows that gold can bring him riches and influence beyond his wildest dreams. Only he knows the terrible crime he committed to attain that wealth. Years later, as Lacey ruthlessly presides over the town he built and named after himself, no one has the courage to question his power or how he wields it.

'Brothers Ernst and Joe Montague are on the run from the law. They land in Lacey's town and commit desperate crimes to avoid capture. Lacey vows retribution and galvanises those in the town to hunt them down. But not everyone is blind to Lacey's evil, and a reckoning is approaching.

'A visceral, powerful dissection of dispossession and colonisation, and the crimes committed in their name, The Death of John Lacey is also a moving and tender account of the love between brothers and a meditation on the true meaning of mercy and justice.' (Publication summary)

'Vernon and Penelope never want to see their son Caleb again. Not after he bashed his wife and ended up in gaol. A lifetime of careful parental love wiped out in a moment.

'But when Vernon, a retired teacher, hears that Caleb is being regularly visited and savagely beaten by a local criminal as the police stand by, he knows he has to act. What has his life as a father been if he turns his back on his son in his hour of desperate need? He realises with shame that he has grievously failed Caleb. No longer.

'To stop the beatings, Vernon plans to approach Ernie Cahill, father of the man bashing Caleb, and head of the local drug-dealing operation. The Cahills run the town and the cops, but Vernon is determined to fix things in a civilised way, father to father. If he shows respect, he reasons, it will be reciprocated. But how wrong he is.

'And what hell will he bring down on his family?

'Reading like a morality tale Western but in a starkly beautiful Australian setting, Snake Island is a propulsive literary thriller written with great clarity and power. It will take you to the edge and keep you there long after the final page is turned. '

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'To Become a Whale tells the story of 13-year-old Sam Keogh, whose mother has died. Sam has to learn how to live with his silent, hitherto absent father, who decides to make a man out of his son by taking him to work at Tangalooma, then the largest whaling station in the southern hemisphere. What follows is the devastatingly beautiful story of a gentle boy trying to make sense of the terrible reality of whaling and the cruelty and alienation of his new world, the world of men.

'Set around Moreton Island and Noosa in 1961, To Become a Whale is an extraordinarily vivid and haunting novel that reads like an instant classic of Australian literature. There are echoes of Craig Silvey, Favel Parrett, Tim Winton and Randolph Stow in this moving, transformative and very Australian novel.' (Publication summary)