Stranger in Galah

Stranger in Galah, first published in 1958, is a murder mystery set in the drought-stricken outback of northern Australia. The story revolves around John Deane, who, while driving his old truck toward the remote town of Galah, comes across an aborigine hanging from a tree. A short time before he had seen the young man alive and being pursued by a group of men. He brings the body to the authorities in Galah but little action is taken. Deane, considered a troublemaker and outsider by the townsfolk, then sets out on a single-handed mission to bring a measure of justice to the murdered man.

But among the people of Galah, Deane can arouse no curiosity about the corpse he has recovered. It is in the interest of everyone in Galah to deny the reality, to admit nothing, to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye towards him — Deane the troublemaker, the intruder, the “pommie.” Deane is no hero, in his own eyes least of all, but partly from cussedness, partly from a slow deep-down sense of pity towards a murdered aborigine, he sets himself single-handed against a hostile population to see justice done.

This is the starting-point of Michael Barrett’s story. Tautly written, with fine descriptions of the macabre impact of drought on the forlorn countryside, it is first and foremost an exciting story, moving tensely and inevitably from crisis to crisis. The savage actions that spring from lives of stark existence are impressively narrated.