The Coves

San Francisco, 1849: a place gripped by gold fever, swarming with desperate men come to seek their fortune. Among them are former convicts, Australians quick to seize control in a town without masters, a town for the taking. Into this world steps an Australian boy in search of his mother. Just twelve years old, and all alone in a time of opportunism, loyalty and violent betrayal, Samuel Bellamy must learn to become one of the Sydney Coves if he is to survive.

David Whish-Wilson is an acclaimed crime writer and academic. He left Australia aged eighteen to live for a decade in Europe, Africa, and Asia, where he worked as a barman, actor, street seller, petty criminal, laborer, exterminator, factory worker, gardener, clerk, travel agent, teacher, and drug-trial guinea pig. He now lives in Fremantle and coordinates the creative writing program at Curtin University.