Cirrus@Austlit

'A compelling tale of the slow disintegration of a relationship and the unravelling of a man.

'Tom and Clara are two struggling academics in their mid-thirties, who decide to take their first holiday in ten years. On the flight over to Indonesia, Tom experiences a debilitating panic attack, something he hasn't had in a long time, which he keeps hidden from Clara. At the resort, they meet Madeleine, a charismatic French woman, her Australian partner, Jeremy, and five-year-old son, Ollie, and the two couples strike up an easy friendship. The holiday starts to look up, even to Tom, who is struggling to get out of his own head. But when Clara and Madeleine become trapped in the maze-like grounds of the hotel during 'the fogging' - a routine spraying of pesticide - the dynamics suddenly shift between Tom and Clara, and the atmosphere of the holiday darkens.

'Told with equal parts compassion and irony, and brimming with observations that charm, illuminate, and devastate, The Fogging dives deep into what it means to be strong when your foundation is built on sand.' (Publication summary)

'Graeme Sweetapple is a man down on his luck, reduced to stealing cattle to pay the mortgage on the family farm. Early one Christmas morning, Sweetapple is heading home with a truck full of stolen steers when he comes across an upended ute that has hit a tree. Anna, one of the two passengers he helps out, is an anti-coal mine protestor, and she has stolen a small explosives pack that one of the more extreme protestors had taken from the mine. When she spots the cattle, she blackmails Sweetapple into taking the explosives and hiding them.

'Sweetapple cares for the horses of his wealthy neighbours, Bob and Caroline Statham. He despises the dodgy big-business ethics of Bob and his ex-politician wife, but he loves horses and needs the money, so when Bob asks him to steal a very expensive horse for him, he agrees.

'The horse is called Retribution, and Sweetapple forms a strong attachment to her. He fantasises about keeping her, and finds it difficult to ultimately hand her over to Bob. So when Bob subsequently does something terrible to the horse, Sweetapple wants revenge. But is revenge the solution or the problem?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.