The epigraph is an abridged version of an article that appeared in The Queenslander on February 7, 1885, reporting the acquittal of Native Police Sub-Inspector William Nichols following charges relating tothe murder of Aboriginals at Irvinebank by troopers under his command. The full article—and countless others like it—is availablevia Trove (http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19796331), a valuable online resource offered by the National Library of Australia.
Any historical errors or inaccuracies in the novel are my own.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to: my agent Lucy Luck and all at C&W; Anna Stein at ICM Partners; Luke Speed at Curtis Brown; my editors Terry Kartenand Laura Macaulay, publicists Tracy Locke and Poppy Stimpson, and all at HarperCollins and Pushkin Press; the many reviewers,bloggers, booksellers, and authors who have supported my work; my family for their continued support and encouragement; myparents—to whom this book is dedicated—for giving me the courage to dream; and Sarah, for helping to make those dreams cometrue.
About the Author
PAUL HOWARTH is a British-Australian author and former lawyer who holds an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia,where he was awarded the Malcolm Bradbury Scholarship. In 2018, his debut novel, Only Killers and Thieves, was published to international acclaim, winning the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for fiction, and appearing on numerousother awards and books-of-the-year lists. He currently lives in Norwich, England, with his family.
Dust Off the Bones is his second novel.
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Only Killers and Thieves
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiouslyand are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead,is entirely coincidental.
dust off the bones. Copyright © 2021 by Paul Howarth. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By paymentof the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-bookon-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in orintroduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical,now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
first edition
Cover design by Milan Bozic
Cover photograph © Trent Parke/Magnum Photos
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Digital Edition JUNE 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-307602-0
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-307600-6
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