When Darren Williams’s first novel, Swimming in Silk, was published in Australia in 1994, the acclaim was immediate and unanimous, and the book went on to win the Vogel Award, one of the most prestigious literary prizes in Australia. Now Angel Rock brings this fiercely talented voice to the American reading public for the first time. Angel Rock is the name of a hardscrabble town in the Australian outback, encroached upon by wilderness on all sides. So it’s not hard for thirteen-year-old Tom and his four-year-old brother, Flynn, to find themselves lost, on an unfamiliar road leading to nowhere they know, night falling, no one in sight. And in the instant that Tom’s attention is caught by a kangaroo lying by the side of the road—Is it alive or dead?—Flynn is gone. Flynn’s inexplicable disappearance weighs heavily on the small, close-knit town. But there’s more: another child of Angel Rock, a girl now in her teens, is found dead, an apparent suicide, in Sydney. And when the suicide becomes known in town, the history of deep-rooted family feuds and dark, unshakable obsessions that the community has tried to bury begins to push to the surface. But it is only with the arrival of Gibson—the investigating detective from Sydney, a man given to frequent spells of drunkenness and despair—that the highly charged, intertwining questions surrounding the disappearance and the death, the silence of the townsfolk, and the mysteries of the land itself begin to be answered. Angel Rock is a brilliantly rendered novel—dazzling in its evocation of both physical and psychological terrain. At once menacing and mesmerizing, it announces the arrival of an exceptionally gifted young writer. A week after Tom Ferry and his four-year-old half-brother, Flynn Gunn, get lost in Angel Rock, a town in the harsh Australian outback, only Tom returns, with no recollection of what happened. Around the same time, Gibson, a Sydney detective with a drinking problem, is called to investigate the suicide of Darcy Steele, a young girl from Angel Rock who reminds him of his sister, also a suicide. Upon his arrival in Angel Rock, Steele learns of the Flood family history: both Darcy's and Flynn's fathers were rivals for Annie Flood, who drowned. Angel Rock is the huge rock that peers over the town; like many of the characters in the book, if looked at in the right light and with a little imagination it looks like an angel. But Williams (Swimming in Silk) creates a feeling that everyone is being watched and that only by digging deeply into the past will the answers to these multiple mysteries emerge. Gibson finally understands what happened to his sister as the truth about Annie Flood, Darcy Steele, and Flynn Gunn comes to light at the stunning climax of this suspenseful work. Recommended for most collections. Josh Cohen, Mid-Hudson Lib. Syst., Poughkeepsie, NY Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. In Angel Rock, Australia, 12-year-old Tom Ferry and his younger half-brother, Flynn, go missing for more than a week. Tom is finally found, but Flynn is not with him, and Tom has no idea what happened to him. When Darcy, a teenage girl from Angel Rock, is found dead in Sydney after slitting her wrists, Detective Gibson decides to find out what led her to such extreme behavior. Gibson is haunted by the suicide of his sister, Frances, and by the destruction of her suicide note, which left him unable to understand why she killed herself. Gibson's investigation unearths another death and also long-buried tensions. The kindly sheriff, Pop Mather, helps Gibson and also tries to console both his daughter, Grace, who was Darcy's best friend, and Tom, who is mourning the loss of his brother. As Gibson doggedly pursues the reasons behind Darcy's suicide, it becomes clear that the two apparently unrelated cases might be tied together in a way no one could have guessed. Williams expertly builds the tension in this multilayered story. Kristine Huntley Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved “Beautiful. . . . Haunting. . . . Compelling.” — Denver Post “A darkly atmospheric, haunting novel. . . . Like Daphne Du Maurier . . . Williams knows the meaning of menace.” — The Baltimore Sun “Creates a mood of thoughtful suspense that keeps the reader curious from the start.” — The Washington Post Book World "Although leavened here and there with Huckleberry Finn moments of early love, this is in the main a compelling page-turner where powerful, poetic writing creates a pressing sense of menace. To be read strictly with the curtains closed." — Daily Mail (London) “Opens with a gorgeous evocation of summer . . . .The prose carries a graceful weight of detail.” – New York Times “A compelling page-turner where powerful, poetic writing creates a pressing sense of menace.” –CNN “One of this year's finest works of prose. . . . An absorbing, accomplished novel about adolescence and adulthood, innocence and experience, and living wi