AustLit

'John Jarratt, cult icon and one of Australia's best-loved screen actors, grew up in rural New South Wales and Queensland. These were years filled with boisterous outdoor adventures, a rollicking extended family and a collection of true friends, clouded only by his father's violent rages.

'After an unlikely apprenticeship at NIDA he launched a career that took him to the peaks of the film industry, from a featured role as Albert in Picnic at Hanging Rock to his career-defining embodiment of Ned Kelly. For years he was a laconic TV home improvement co-host, before reviving his film career with a nightmare-inducing performance as Mick Taylor in Wolf Creek. Along the way he fathered six children in a series of tumultuous relationships, as he struggled with the dual addiction of alcohol and house building.

'In his sixth decade, after a lifetime of reckless living, he has found his voice, salty but rambunctiously entertaining, and told with the confidence of a raconteur - and, finally, he has discovered personal happiness by unexpectedly reuniting with the one grand love of his life.

'Told with honesty and humour, this is an Australian life lived large, filled with passion and pain.' (Publication summary)

'Jack is pushed past the brink of his stalking obsession when he decides to break into Emily’s home to take what he wants by force. However, his plans [...] come unhinged when he wakes up to find himself bleeding and bound to a chair in her kitchen. For one night Jack and Emily engage in a twisted and thrilling courtship of the sexes that leads one to wonder which one of them will survive the night.'

Source: Promotional blurb.

A man recently released from prison pursues his wife and teenaged son into the Australian countryside, where the three find themselves stranded in a roadhouse by a raging flood, along with the roadhouse owners, two backpackers, and a hired assassin.