Political thriller

Prohibited zone / Alastair Sarre.  Adelaide, SA :  Wakefield Press, 2011

Set in the desert of the Woomera Prohibited Area, suburban Adelaide and the Fleurieu  Peninsula, this political thriller, maintains intrigue and pace  throughout. In the dark days that followed 9/11, the hardest thing was sorting the good guys from the bad. In Australia they got it wrong. Saira Abdiani and her friend, Amir Ali Khan, are Afghan refugees with a violent past. When Saira and Amir both disappear from the Woomera Refugee Detention Centre, the cops, the secret service and a ragtag gang of vigilantes are all on the trail. Steve West is a former football hero turned mining engineer who just wants a dirty weekend in town. He ends up seeing the dirty side of the War on Terror.

Alastair Sarre’s ear for dialogue, eye for place and character, and deft skill in pitting historical and political viewpoints against each other, make Prohibited Zone an excellent, provocative read.

Asylum in the Australian outback

Nights in the asylum / Carol Lefevre. Milsons Point, N.S.W.: Random House Australia, 2007

Set in a mining town in the Australian outback, Nights in the Asylum is the story of three people seeking shelter. Stricken with grief and guilt following the death of her daughter, Miri flees the city for the quiet calm of Havana Gardens, a once fine but now dilapidated mansion built for her grandmother. On the road she rescues Aziz, an Afghan refugee on the run from detention; then, in the attic of the old house, Miri discovers Suzette Moran and her baby daugher hiding, and grants them refuge.

Written in spare, taut prose, Nights in the Asylum is Miri's story; it is also a story of home, of belonging, of leaving one home and trying to make another, where-ever and how-ever you can.