Gunshot Road by Adrian Hyland

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Wear to book corners and edges. Previous owner has underlined pages in pencil. Previous owner has removed half-title and title page.

Emily Tempest is small, black, as snaky as a taipan’s tooth, and is the woman least likely ever to embark on a career in policing. But her old mate, Superintendent Tom MacGillivray, has persuaded her to sign on as the Aboriginal Community Police Officer for the outback (not to mention throwback) township of Bluebush.

Then Tom is hospitalised, and Emily finds herself working for a new bloke instead: an east-coast ring-in martinet called Cockburn.

Being allergic to authority and keeping her big mouth shut, Emily is immediately at odds with the new boss. And the death at the Green Swamp Well Roadhouse only complicates things. Cockburn thinks it’s a simple case of two old drunks and a hammer. Emily’s not convinced.

Adrian Hyland takes us to the outback, a place we think we know and have mostly never seen. Introducing us to the people who belong there, a different people as wise, foolish and fallible as the rest of us. And spinning for us a veil of wit and lyrical beauty through which we can see them truly.