The Newcomer
Overview
When her 29-year-old daughter Paulina goes missing on a sleepy pacific island, Judy Novak suspects the worst. Her fears are soon realised as Paulina’s body is discovered, murdered.
Every man on the island is a suspect, yet none are as maligned as Paulina herself, the captivating newcomer known for her hard drinking, disastrous relationships, and a habit for walking alone. But even death won’t stop Judy Novak from fighting for her daughter’s life.
A scintillating new thriller, inspired by real events, that puts the victim at the centre, by the author of The Love of a Bad Man
Details
- Format
- Size
- Extent
- ISBN
- RRP
- Pub date
- Rights held
- Other rights
- Paperback
- 198mm x 129mm
- 368 pages
- 9781913348380
- GBP£9.99
- 9 December 2021
- UK, Cwlth & EU (ex Can) + translation
- Left Bank Literary
Categories
Praise
‘Woollett manipulates the structure of the crime novel, the suspense of the whodunnit, to destabilise the idea that there is ever one perpetrator of a crime … [her] prose is intellectual and deliberate … The Newcomer does a lot in its short pages, weaving together a story of grief and unhappiness with a compelling crime narrative.’
‘Powerful … Laura Elizabeth Woollett is an excellent writer. She doesn’t deal in stereotypes: even her toxic males … are sensitively portrayed.’
About the Author
Laura Elizabeth Woollett is an author and critic based in Naarm/Melbourne. Her short story collection, The Love of a Bad Man, was published in 2016, followed by the novels Beautiful Revolutionary (2018), The Newcomer (2021), and West Girls (2023). Her works have been listed for numerous awards, including the Stella Prize and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction. In 2025, she was a writer-in-residence at the Cité Internationale Des Arts in Paris. Hell Days (2026) is her nonfiction debut.
