darren williams

A beautiful, haunting, engrossing, terrifying, enchanting novel destined to win prizes and storm the bestseller lists. To read this book is a total immersion experience. Since it was first acquired in a hot auction, Darren Williams’ novel has attracted comparisons – Picnic at Hanging Rock, To Kill a Mockingbird, Stand By Me, to name but a few (and no coincidence that all three have been made into major movies, because Angel Rock is a feast for all the senses) – but it is also a completely unique and original novel. The setting is Australia, 1969. Two half-brothers get lost in the wild wooded countryside around the small town of Angel Rock. Only the eldest, 13-year-old Tom, finds his way home. At about the same time, a 16-year-old girl goes missing from the town and is found in Sydney. She has killed herself. The policeman who gets the case in the city follows the trail back to Angel Rock. In searching for a meaning in this tragic death, he is searching for nothing less than a meaning in his own troubled life. The tales of the policeman, Gibson, and the boy, Tom, converge in the mystical back-country of Angel Rock, in a story that is part coming-of-age, part detective thriller, of redemption both individual and communal, and altogether one story that you will never forget.