San Francisco, 1849. The hills are swarming with desperate men from all over the world, come to seek their fortune in the grip of yellow fever. In their wake come the opportunists, not least of whom are the Australians, many of them former convicts who are quick to seize control in a lawless world.
This group of Australians, headed by the standover man Thomas Keane, are known as The Coves. Enter twelve-year-old Samuel Bellamy, formerly of the Swan River Colony, lately of Van Diemans Land, in search of his mother who, last he heard, has gone to join the molly-houses in California. Sydney-town, San Francisco, is a world of opportunism, loyalty and violent betrayal, and Samuel must learn to be a man if he is to survive.
Bill is one of the founders of Boffins and has been involved in selecting the books we stock since our beginning in 1989. His favourite reading is history, with psychology, current affairs, and business books coming close behind. His hobbies are reading, food, reading, drinking, reading, and sleeping.
If you read David Whish-Wilson’s trilogy starting with Line of Sight – loosely based on the Shirley Finn murder - and featuring Frank Swann, you’re probably as addicted to his writing as I am. Did you know that in 1852 it was estimated that a quarter of San Francisco’s population was Australian? Things were tough in Australian in the 1840’s, and big numbers of people left to join the 1849 Californian gold rush. Some of these Australians were pretty nasty types – even credited with burning down San Francisco 5 times between 1849 and 1855. No wonder many were lynched, exiled, or just fled by themselves back to our own mid 1850’s gold rush. This is the background for David’s new novel, which has just hit the shelves. It’s hero is Samuel Bellamy, and he’s a twelve year old boy searching for his mother. He has to fit in to the community of desperadoes and criminals to survive. This is a great tale, with a fabulous setting, and I think the take of one reviewer, Paul Daley, sums it up perfectly: “The Coves is what happens when Australian criminals take over Deadwood".
