The Low Road

July 9, 2012
Near the outset of Ned Kelly Award–winner Womersley’s debut, his second novel to be published in the U.S. (after Bereft), Dr. Wild (aka the Junkie Doctor), abandoned by his wife and teenage daughter, not to mention his friends (“Those around him nodded sympathetically, hid their wallets and lost his phone number”), decides to leave home and hit the road. After two nights sleeping in his car, Wild reaches the outskirts of an unnamed Australian city and checks into a cheap motel. A day or two later, the manager asks him to attend to Lee, a young man dumped at the motel with a serious abdominal bullet wound. Wild does what little he can to stabilize Lee, and agrees to take him to an old doctor friend out “on the plains.” Meanwhile, criminals are seeking to claim their right to the eight grand Lee has on him. Fans of literate contemporary noir will find plenty to like.