Everyone turns and looks when an ambulance screams by, lights flashing and siren blaring. If you’ve watched an ambulance go by in Sydney—or Johannesburg, Skopje, London, Peshawar or any number of other places— Benjamin Gilmour might just have been on board. Gilmour has had an unusual career. Rather than remain a paramedic in Sydney, he’s taken his skills and applied them in ambulance services all over the world, from a poor volunteer service in Pakistan to a private service for London’s exclusive Harley Street clinics and all points in between. The end result is a startling exercise in contrasts, at times quite graphic and a little gory, but consistently a reminder of how lucky we are to have the ambulance service we have in Australia. Gilmour doesn’t shy away from technical terms and readers do not, as a general rule, get an explanation of what tachycardia and other more medical field-specific words mean, but for readers who are prepared to either get out the dictionary or just let it slide, there’s never a loss of enjoyment and interest.
Eliza Metcalfe is a freelance writer and editor and former assistant editor of Bookseller+Publisher. This review first appeared in the October issue of Bookseller+Publisher magazine.
Dow Amber doesn’t fit in in his quiet mountain village. Ever since his first distant glimpse of the sea he has felt strangely drawn by a longing to sail. But travelling the ocean is forbidden to the people of New Island ever since they were conquered by the Ship Kings 80 years ago. Dow’s secret connection to his island’s seafaring past leads to his apprenticeship to a bitter old fisherman, his family killed by the great Maelstrom, and eventually to a meeting with the fabled Ship Kings themselves. This book shows the beginnings of the man destined to become the greatest mariner of his age. The Coming of the Whirlpool is acclaimed novelist Andrew McGahan’s first YA novel, and begins a new series chronicling the life of Dow Amber among the Ship Kings. McGahan has crafted a classic adventure tale with the potential to grow to a true epic over subsequent volumes that promise to continue Dow’s life story. McGahan captures the mystery and romance of the sea, and draws us in with his fine portrayal of his restless lead. This is a recommended read for fans of epic oceanic adventures.
Sherlock Holmes expert Anthony Horowitz brings the great man to life for a new generation of readers in 
In Newperth after The Melt, brackish water, disease-carrying mosquitoes and lab-generated food does nothing to brighten life for lowly Bankers and Ferals who live in fear of dying from the disease MalX. Rosie Black, a young Banker, thought life was improving when she and her friend Juli found a box in the swamp, but like Pandora they unleashed destructive forces that have consequences as far away as Mars. In the second book of Rosie’s adventures she has returned to Earth after helping destroy Helios’ Mars outpost. Helios is a company that acts like a despotic government; revealed as the creators of MalX, the company should be discredited and weakened, but a huge Helios compound is found in Nation, a desert area run independently by indigenous people. Close by is Pip, a boy rescued by Rosie who is immune to MalX and hiding out in Nation. Everyone wants him, especially Rosie, who lurches from distrust to lust at each meeting. However, she has problems of her own—the secrets of Helios have been implanted in her brain, and the implant is damaged. This is a sci-fi adventure with plenty of fighting, romance, and an attractive group of daring young people trying to save the world. Further sequels are planned. (See the review of Book 1 
Rod Howard’s historical biography explores the nearforgotten life of convict Henry Savery, whose thinly veiled fictional autobiography Quintus Servinton was Australia’s first novel. Hailing from a once-grand Bristol family, Savery was charged with minor forgery and confronted with the death penalty, but through distant social connections secured a reprieve of deportation. Hampered by lack of documentation, Rod Howard’s descriptions of Savery’s life in Britain oscillate between unsubstantiated conjecture and prosaic legal reporting. The book hits its stride, however, with Savery’s arrival in Van Diemen’s Land in 1825, where he was initially employed by the colonial treasurer and afforded several advantages. Howard’s descriptions are gothically visceral; Tasmania comes to life as a primitive, dilapidated colony, where Savery’s fellow convicts direct an embryonic form of Australian tall-poppy syndrome towards his privileged circumstances. Howard offers a sympathetic portrait of a man in turns blessed and cursed by fate: a devoted but cuckolded husband and an ambitious writer of limited talent. Ultimately, however, he is revealed as a pathetic figure, incapable of reform. His social-climbing instincts and undirected intelligence could not save him from an ignominious end. This book will appeal to readers interested in Australian historical fiction and the convict era, and those who enjoyed The Secret River.
