Bereft

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Synopsis:The year is 1919 and the Great War has ended. Sergeant Quinn Walker--with a damaged body and soul from his wartime experiences--decides to return home to the small and desolate town of Flint, Australia, to set right the past. Ten years earlier, he had fled following the horrific rape and murder of his beloved younger sister Sarah--a crime that everyone, including his family, believed Quinn committed. When he arrives on the outskirts of Flint, Quinn learns the town has not escaped the deadly flu epidemic sweeping the globe. And though he is in danger of being hanged if his identity is discovered, Quinn feels compelled to convince his mother (dying of the flu) of his innocence. As he hides out, working up the courage to confront the tragedy that shattered his life, Quinn meets a mysterious orphan girl, Sadie Fox, whose powers verge on magical and who seems to know more about the evil that lives in Flint than any child should. In gorgeously spare, poetic language, Bereft tells a powerful story about love and loss in a world ravaged by war and disease.Publishers Weekly: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)Biography:Chris Womersley is a writer of considerable power whose first book, The Low Road, won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Crime Fiction. Before its publication, the manuscript was shortlisted for Victorian Premiers' Award for Unpublished Manuscript. His second novel, Bereft, won the Indie Award for best Australian novel and Book of the Year from the ABIA. It was also the runner-up for the prestigious Miles Franklin Award and shortlisted for the ASL Gold Medal for Literature, the Ned Kelly Award for Fiction, and the Age Book of the Year award. Australian native Womersley is a print and radio journalist who lives in Melbourne.