Victim of the Aurora - Thomas Keneally

In the waning years of the Edwardian era, a group of gentlemen wait out a raging blizzard in the perpetual darkness of the Antarctic winter, poised for a strike at the South Pole. As the storm lifts, a new challenge faces Captain Sir Eugene Stewart - to discover which of his twenty-five carefully chosen men has become a murderer. The quest for adventure has become a quest for justice.

Thomas Keneally began his writing career in 1964 and has published thirty-one novels since. They include Schindler's Ark, which won the Booker Prize in 1982 and was subsequently made into the film Schindler's List, and The Chant Of Jimmie Blacksmith, Confederates and Gossip From The Forest, each of which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His most recent novels are The Daughters Of Mars, which was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize in 2013, Shame and the Captives and Crimes of the Father. He has also written several works of non-fiction, including his memoir Homebush Boy, Searching for Schindler and Australians. He is married with two daughters and lives in Sydney.

His story is tightly reined: terse, ironic, reflective. His depiction of Edwardian innocence and stuffiness crashing against the Antarctic void is superb
Washington Post

The solution is as astonishing as it is inevitable, the denouement chilling and tragic
Ruth Rendell

The period gives this book its strength and character . . . altogether an admirable accomplishment
New Yorker

The absolute dark, absolute cold of the Antarctic is skilfully evoked
Sunday Times

A powerful and subtle writer . . . a remarkable novel
Spectator

I was riveted by this tale of a man fighting the elements and his fellow explorers
Daily Telegraph

Highly original and deeply moving
Observer