The Colour of Kerosene and Other Stories

In these fourteen stories, Cameron Raynes traverses landscapes of regret, joy and redemption. In a country town, a woman plots to ruin her rival with an act steeped in racism. A welfare worker is asked to spy on a colleague. And in the award-winning title story, a taxi driver accepts a fare he knows he shouldn’t:

They headed east, the nude hills of the Geraldton plains, stripped of their trees a century before, leaning into them on both sides as the car climbed into the marginal country. Behind him, Luke heard the gurgle of fluid sluicing out of a bladder and into a cup, smelt the sweet stink of cheap wine. It occurred to him that it was not too late to turn back.

‘Reading the stories in Kerosene will put dirt under your fingernails. Raynes’s vision is hard-edged and sometimes downright brutal yet it’s studded with empathy, compassion and truth.’ - Patrick Allington