Rohan Wilson

A powerful, suspenseful tale about a father and son in search of one another, this prize-winning novel based on real-life events is a classic western story of vengeance and redemption set against the sweeping, merciless grandeur of the Australian frontier. It is the summer of 1874. Launceston, a colonial outpost on the southern Australian island of Tasmania, hovers on the brink of anarchy, teeming with revolutionaries, convicts, drunks, crooked cops, and poor strugglers looking for a break. Outlaw Thomas Toosey races to this dangerous bedlam to find his motherless twelve-year-old son before the city swallows the child whole, but he is pursued by more than just the law. Hindering his progress at every turn is a man to whom he owes a terrible debt: the vengeful Irishman Fitheal Finn, whose hooded companion hides a grotesque secret.Brilliantly told in galloping, lyrical prose and infused with gothic tones reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy, Daniel Woodrell, and William Faulkner, To Name Those Lost is a gripping story of fatherly devotion and of one man's search for moral bearings in a lawless society. WinnerVictorian Premier's Literary Award and the Adelaide Festival Award for Best Novel

" An] exceedingly powerful debut. Wilson's compelling story carries us through forest and over plains, leaving a trail of dead men." --Alan Cheuse, The Chicago Tribune 1829, Tasmania. A group of men--convicts, a farmer, two free black traders, and Black Bill, an aboriginal man brought up from childhood as a white man--are led by Jon Batman, a notorious historical figure, on a "roving party." Their purpose is massacre. With promises of freedom, land grants and money, each is willing to risk his life for the prize. Passing over many miles of tortured country, the roving party searches for Aborigines, taking few prisoners and killing freely, Batman never abandoning the visceral intensity of his hunt. And all the while, Black Bill pursues his personal quarry, the much-feared warrior, Manalargena. A surprisingly beautiful evocation of horror and brutality, The Roving Party is a meditation on the intricacies of human nature at its most raw.