AustLit

'A murder thriller set in Outback, Australia. Backpackers alone in the isolated Red Centre of Australia, in the cruel Outback alone, frightened, surrounded by an impenetrable wall of silence and mystery, where random acts of violence strike at any moment, where the vastness, the isolation, anxiety, fear and febrile thoughts convulse the traveller into a vortex of hysteria and high drama. The boyfriend shot in the head. Brutal savagery against a defenceless woman after her boyfriend is coldly eliminated in the remoteness of the Australian bush, miles from any form of civilisation. Then the slow march to recovery and sanity while the press and the police unravel the surreal past in a frenzy of press speculation, doubt, accusations, lies and mistrust. To finally have the matter dragged through the mangle of a courtroom drama, where the heroine is debased, abused, accused and finally vindicated.'

(Source: publisher's website). 

'This is the first and only complete biography of Frederick Walker, 1820 to 1866. Mr Walker's life was one of isolation, hardship and rejection. As Commandant of the Native Police, he was the man who stood at the front line of Australian history with his true and trusty sable force. He was much abused in his day by the squatters for his careful and clement handling of Aborigines, ami des noirs. He is still much abused and neglected today and stands accused of many high crimes and misdemeanours against humanity and the aboriginal natives of Australia. These are all gross slanders and monstrous calumnies. This treatise on his life and times is a complete defence to these infamous allegations, backed with pages of original sources.

'After being driven from his command of the Native Police by petty minded squatters and disloyal officers, he took up the worthy profession of a run-hunter and opened up much grazing land in southern and central Queensland, in particular, Plant Downs. He was readily enlisted in the search for Burke and Wills, the forever lamentable tragedy of Australian heroism lost to the unforgiving Outback. Frederick Walker's final act was in the service of the State of Queensland in surveying a telegraph line from Townsville to Burketown for the purposes of an overseas telegraphic link to India. He now lies in a bush grave where he fell on the road to Floraville, Leichhardt River, Queensland. Walker was a bushman par excellence, an Aboriginal Whisperer beyond comparison and an explorer without equal.' (Publication summary)

Based on the letters of Dan Dill, who arrived in Australia in 1884 (aged 26) and worked around the country, writing letters home to family in Ireland.