Title: The wisdom of stones
First published: 1994
Description: The author of Power in the Blood returns to his Australian roots in this gripping new novel, to the country's wild Northern Territory as it faces Japanese attack in the Second World War.

In 1939 a young Englishman, Clive Bagnall, arrives in Darwin, then a rough and remote town, to claim his inheritance, Redlands, a lonely, ramshackle cattle station in the bush left to him by his uncle, who has died mysteriously. He is soon befriended by a likable local roughneck, Doug Farrands, and then by his cousin Valerie, who arrives in the north to challenge her father's bequest.

Also inhabiting the area is a band of Aborigines - among them Doug's mixed-race son - whose lives are dominated by two things: the secluded formation of sacred stones known as Kukullumunnumantje, and an ancient, monstrous crocodile called Blighty by the whites, Gulgulong by the blacks. The stage is set for a clash of personalities and cultures

. In time the cousins resolve their differences, and Val is drawn into the strange world of the Aborigines as she, Clive, and Doug settle in to try and make a go of Redlands. Their plans are thwarted by the outbreak of war, as Clive departs to fight for England. Doug, no friend of the mother country, refuses the call to arms. With Clive gone, he marries Val, but then is obliged to join up when the Japanese bomb Darwin and threaten to invade his homeland.

Dramatic and violent adventures follow in the southwestern Pacific, as Clive, captured in Singapore, and Doug, a commando on an ill-fated secret mission, are reunited on Dombi, the hellish island prison camp. There is a tragic and unusual confrontation - based on a little-known, actual wartime incident - between the unlikeliest of enemies in the camp, and one of the most exciting escapes from captivity in the annals of war.

After a harrowing voyage across six hundred miles of open sea, Clive and Doug are faced with the consequences of their actions, and find themselves entangled with the Territorial police and the Aborigines, who have their own deep-rooted claim on Doug and his family. The heart-stopping tension continues to the very end, culminating in the last of this absorbing novel's many surprises.
Subjects: Fiction, World War, 1939-1945, Frontier and pioneer life, Ranch life, History, World War, 1939-1945 -- Australia -- Northern Territory -- Fiction., New York Times reviewed, Australia, fiction, Fiction, westerns
Places: Northern Territory, Australia
LC classification: PR9619.3.M317 W57 1994