Author(s): Fiona McFarlane

Fiction

A gripping, provocative work by one of our finest writers, the internationally acclaimed author Fiona McFarlane. From the acclaimed author of The Sun Walks Down and The Night Guest comes a captivating account of loss and fear, and its extended echoes in individual lives.

In overlapping stories, Highway 13 explores the reverberations of a serial killer's crimes in the lives of everyday people. A brilliant and illuminating account of loss and its extended echoes across an entire society. A gripping, haunting work about the reverberations of a serial killer's crimes in the lives of everyday people.

In 1998, an apparently ordinary Australian man is arrested and charged with a series of brutal murders. The news shocks the nation, bringing both horror and resolution to the victims' families, but its impact travels even further - into the past, as the murders rewrite personal histories, and into the future, as true crime podcasts and biopics tell the story of the crimes.

Highway 13 takes murder as its starting point, but it unfolds to encompass much more: through the investigation of the aftermath of this violence across time and place, from the killer's home town in country Australia to the tropical Far North, and to Texas and Rome, McFarlane presents an unforgettable, entrancing exploration of the way stories are told and spread, and at what cost. What damages, big and small, do these crimes incur? How do communities make sense of such atrocities? How does the mourning of families sit alongside the public fascination with terrible crimes? And can we tell true crime stories without putting the killers at the centre of the story?

'These sublime stories have the poise and clarity of classics. As Fiona McFarlane's characters edge towards revelation or disaster, her artistry shines on every page.' Michelle de Kretser

'Masterful ... an excellent, layered work of literary historical fiction in which McFarlane tackles many complex issues with elegance, assurance and searing intellectual insight.' Canberra Times