Why a Booktrail?
1885: The shocking story of early Australia
Only Killers and Thieves
What you need to know before your trail
One scorching day in Australia deserted outback, Tommy McBride and his brother Billy return home to discover that their parents have been brutally murdered.
Distraught and desperate for revenge, the young men set out in search of the killers. But the year is 1885, and the only man who can help them is the cunning and ruthless John Sullivan wealthy landowner and their father s former employer.
Rallying a posse of men, Sullivan defers to the deadly Inspector Noone and his Queensland Native Police an infamous arm of colonial power whose sole purpose is the dispersal of Indigenous Australians in protection of settler rights. The retribution that follows will leave a lasting scar on the colony and the country it later becomes. It will also haunt Tommy for the rest of his life.
Locations
Reset- Australia - Queensland
- A: Glendale
- B: Lawnton
- C: Queensland Times
- D: Juandah Heritage Site
Travel Guide
BookTrail travel to 1800s Queensland
Most of the locations are fictional but the story is based on true facts and the small towns of the Australian outback, Central Queensland are atypical of the landscape in the book.
“The frontier crossing turned Tommy’s gut. Their passing from settled land to wild. All his life he feared it, the uncharted west, looming like a shadow on the edge of the world.”
This is a story based on true shocking fact set in 1885. The land is dry and anger is bubbling away with the locals. The McBride family struggle to survive on their drought-ridden piece of land and life is tough, dictated to by the weather and soil conditions. Their teenager sons go to live on neighbouring land – rich land owned by John Sullivan. It’s there, their murderous trail of revenge begins..
This is colonial Australia – like the Wild West of America as it expanded. This landscape is harsh, the people barely making a living from the land. Those that do have to fight with the locals, the aborgines who have been on this land for years, centuries. Newcomers want to make money, develop the land and the aborigines get in the way…
The “dispersal” of the native people is a core element of Only Killers and Thieves. The persecution of native peoples is a harsh reading experience and brutal in many parts. Shockingly, this is based on true facts.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: Only Killers and Thieves
Destination: Queensland Author/guide: Paul Howarth Departure Time: 1885
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