Books from WA authors that you won't want to miss this year

February

Wild Dogs by Michael Trant

Penguin
WA author Michael Trant is known for his debut novel Ridgeview Station, but the Perth local has just signed a two-book deal with publishing giants Penguin. Heralded as ‘Australia’s answer to Jack Reacher’, the first, Wild Dogs, is gritty action-thriller set in the drought-ridden rangelands of Western Australia.

The Gallerist by Michael Levitt

Fremantle Press
Colorectal surgeon Michael Levitt makes his first foray into fiction with this charming story of a grieving gallerist, Mark Lewis, who is brought a painting by a seventeen-year-old boy, that bears more than a passing resemblance to works by a famed Australian artist. Before long Mark is deep in the mystery of the painting’s origin.

Banjawarn by Josh Kemp

UWA Publishing
Banjawarn is the debut novel from Josh Kemp, the winner of the 2021 Dorothy Hewitt Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. When true crime writer Garreth Hoyle comes across an abandoned ten-year-old girl in the middle of the northern goldfields he decides to return her to her father, rather than alert the authorities. Soon they’re on the road trip from hell with only each other to rely on.