Cirrus@Austlit

'Nine Aboriginal children under the age of five have died in four years in Plantagenet, a small Aboriginal community on the site of a former large gold-mining town outside Kalgoorlie. Statistically, this is an horrendous infant mortality rate that doesn’t seem to bother anyone except the Catholic missionaries who support the community and community members themselves.

'Is the lack of concern just because the deaths are those of Aboriginal children or is something more sinister happening?

'Robbie Fairfax, a former road-train driver who has recently trained as a teacher, walks into the eye of a political storm on his first posting in 1974. He becomes involved in seeking reasons for these deaths, working with the missionaries, community members and an attractive young high school science teacher. His efforts put him at odds with heads of government agencies, regional Catholics, the local media and his educational superiors, all of whom seek to protect their reputations as they try to destroy his.

'His ordeal is made more complex by past personal issues, but at least he has support from the Catholic missionaries, including a very pretty nun, his ever-supportive mother and a female psychologist who returns to his life.' (Publication summary)

'"Here's some pidgin, Mick," and Garrick spoke rapidly. "Who been dat pella? Where him been prom? You been subby him? Him been talk punny way, ay? Him been kardiya bloke.""

'"What?" Mick shook his head quickly."

'"I said, 'who is that man? Where is he from? Do you know him? Doesn't he talk in a strange way? He's a stranger in this place'."

'It's 2017. Mick Wilson's wife has taken off from Adelaide with a long-haul truck-driver and Mick's two little kids. In an attempt to find his family, Mick, a brick-layer and former top-level Australian Rules footballer, blindly heads for Alice Springs.

'In Central Australia, where many people go to hide from their past, Mick finds a different and challenging world. He stumbles into work on a remote cattle station, with an Aboriginal community close by. He also finds three very different women who shape his destiny.

'Racial tensions, tangled personal relationships, a mysterious mountain range and a struggling Aboriginal community and football team force Mick to become part of a strange new world and way of being. Across a cultural divide, new understandings emerge in the most unlikely ways.

'Through it all, Mick searches and aches for his kids, but because of the people he comes to know, he's never alone. '(Publication summary)