Jock Serong is known as an author of gripping books about crime and catastrophe. His stories spark and seethe with tense emotional and political detail, often drawing on his other skills – in law, and in surf writing. He’s won wide critical acclaim for Quota, On the Java Ridge and The Rules of Backyard Cricket.

Serong’s latest, Preservation, takes readers through a different kind of crime writing – this time set in 1797, and based on the true story of the shipwrecked Sydney Cove. It follows Lieutenant Joshua Grayling’s investigation of the wreck, its three terribly injured survivors, and their encounters with an unfamiliar land.

At Montalto, Jock Serong chats with Elizabeth McCarthy about Preservation, human misdeeds, and the search for truth amid conflicting accounts.

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