On a beach not far from the isolated settlement of Sydney in 1797, a fishing boat picks up three shipwreck survivors, distressed and terribly injured. They have walked hundreds of miles across a landscape whose features—and inhabitants—they have no way of comprehending. They have lost fourteen companions along the way. Their accounts of the ordeal are evasive.
It is Lieutenant Joshua Grayling's task to investigate the story. He comes to realise that those fourteen deaths were contrived by one calculating mind and, as the full horror of the men's journey emerges, he begins to wonder whether the ruthless killer poses a danger to his own family.
Jock Serong's first novel, Quota, won the 2015 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. The Rules of Backyard Cricket was shortlisted for the 2017 Victorian Premier's Award for Fiction, and was a finalist in the 2017 Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards and the 2017 Indie Book Awards. On the Java Ridge won the Colin Roderick Award and the international Staunch Book Prize in 2018. Jock lives with his family on Victoria's far west coast.
'Serong's characters are compelling and, in his reimagining, Preservation gives voice to those who, in the literature of the time, were largely voiceless.' Sydney Morning Herald
'Serong's description of the landscape, the encounters with indigenous groups and his finely drawn descriptions of the players in the story makes this a gripping and compelling novel that will justly draw comparisons with Kate Grenville's acclaimed The Secret River.' Mark Rubbo, Readings
'Jock Serong delivers a story of survival and treachery that examines the principles on which the colony of New South Wales was founded and the impact invading attitudes had on the land's indigenous population.' 2SER
'Serong's prose is evocative, his dialogue convincing.' Sydney Morning Herald
'Preservation is an impressive novel, one that revels in the power of narrative to enlighten, horrify and enthral.' Australian
'Full of tension and menace.' Readings
'Serong is a talented storyteller.' Booklist
'One of Australia's most innovative and ambitious crime writers.' NZ Listener
