The Riders

Books

The Riders, the novel that brought Tim Winton his first Booker Prize shortlisting, charts an odyssey across Europe, a transfixing journey through the underworld of every lover's nightmare. Fred Scully waits at the arrival gate of an international airport, anxious to see his wife and daughter. After two years in Europe they are finally settling down. He sees a new life before them, a stable outlook again, a fresh start, a cottage in the Irish countryside that he's renovated by hand. He's waited, sweated on this reunion. He does not like to be alone - he's that kind of man. The flight lands, the doors at the airport hiss open . . . Scully's life falls apart. Written with the pace of a thriller and the human understanding of a master novelist, The Riders is the novel that brought Tim Winton to international attention. 'At its breaking heart is a fearless exploration of how well we can ever really know each other . . . Winton is not a great Australian novelist; he is a great novelist full stop.' The Times ...