Dry Season

A powerful and moving debut novel of one man's search for redemption deep in the badlands of the Amazon...

Set in a dusty 1980s village deep in the Amazon, DRY SEASON is the story of darkness, violence and ultimately a kind of redemption...

Sam is an English ex-priest who has lost his way. Having come to South America to find something within himself, he has lost far more as a result of the horrific things he has seen. For Brazil is a country in crisis - stuck between the old ways of gangsterism, corruption and violence and the coming modernity of strip mining and the chainsaw. Disillusioned, he has now turned inwards and lives, drinks and fishes on the banks of the mighty river.

But one night his whole world changes again with a knock on the door of his shack. A man lies dying on the floor of the local bar and only Sam and his drinking buddy, Paulo the doctor, can save him. But Sam again comes up short. The man dies, but in his death Sam starts to find the strength to start to change himself and the dark world around him.

This is a very powerful novel - often bleak but populated with vivid characters and wil settings. Drawing on influences as disparate as HEART OF DARKNESS and the tales of the American West, it is one of the most powerful and memorable debuts of the year.