Gunpowder Creek (Alex Dook, Echo)

Alex Dook’s debut novel, Gunpowder Creek​, explores the question of how far a parent would go to save their child. Emily is a single mother whose teenage son, Zach, is caught up in a botched break-in that leaves him tied up in a basement, begging for his life. When Emily receives a voicemail with a desperate message from her son, she hears his panicked cry for help cut off by the sound of a gunshot. To save his life, she must agree to take his place as a delivery driver transporting a stolen car with unknown cargo from Perth to a remote airfield in outback Western Australia within three days. The narrative unfolds through multiple perspectives: Emily battling the heat and isolation of the outback; Zach, injured and desperate in captivity; and Shane, a cold-hearted killer who is relentlessly pursuing Emily and who takes twisted pleasure in others’ suffering. One of the novel’s most compelling qualities is how the Australian outback emerges not just as a setting, but as an active antagonist with its brutal heat, isolation and vastness challenging the characters at every turn. While some characters and decisions are hard to connect with, Dook excels at crafting flawed, impulsive figures. The story moves at breakneck speed, drawing out the desperation, recklessness and misplaced trust that can change someone’s life in an instant. Gunpowder Creek is the very definition of an Australian cat-and-mouse thriller in the vein of Chris Hammer (Silver, Scrublands) or Candice Fox (High Wire, Crimson Lake). 

Books+Publishing reviewer: Emily Wyatt is an Adelaide-based librarian, writer and lifelong reader. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

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