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Start giftingThe Arsonist
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreThe Arsonist takes readers inside the hunt for a fire-lighter. After Black Saturday, a February 2009 day marked by 47 degree heat and firestorms, arson squad detectives arrived at a plantation on the edge of a 26,000-hectare burn site. Eleven people had just been killed and hundreds made homeless. Here, in the Latrobe Valley, where Victoria's electricity is generated, and the rates of unemployment, crime and domestic abuse are the highest in the state, more than thirty people were known to police as firebugs. But the detectives soon found themselves on the trail of a man they didn't know.
The Arsonist tells a remarkable detective story, as the police close in on someone they believe to be a cunning offender; and a puzzling psychological story, as defence lawyers seek to understand the motives of a man who, they claimed, was a na�f that had accidentally dropped a cigarette.
It is the story not only of this fire - how it happened, the people who died, the aftermath for the community - but of fire in this country. What it has done, what it has meant, what it might yet do. Bushfire is one of Australia's deepest anxieties, never more so than when deliberately lit. Arson, wrote Henry Lawson, expresses a malice 'terrifying to those who have seen what it is capable of. You never know when you are safe.'
As she did in The Tall Man, Chloe Hooper takes us to a part of the country seldom explored, and reveals something buried but essential in our national psyche. The bush, summertime, a smouldering cigarette - none of these will feel the same again.
Chloe Hooper (Author)
Chloe Hooper's The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island (2008) won the Victorian, New South Wales, West Australian and Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, as well as the John Button Prize for Political Writing, and a Ned Kelly Award for crime writing. She is also the author of two novels, A Child's Book of True Crime and The Engagement.
Sybilla Budd (Reader)
Since graduating from the prestigious Victoria College of the Arts, Sibylla Budd has enjoyed a successful career in film, television and theatre. She is best known for the role of Gabrielle in the multi award-winning drama series The Secret Life of Us for three successful seasons. Sibylla's other performances for television include, Tomorrow When the War Began, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Rake, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Redfern Now, Winners and Losers, It's a Date, Canal Road, Sea Patrol, All Saints, Kath and Kim, The Farm, Something In The Air, and most recently, Picnic at Hanging Rock.
Sibylla has also had a flourishing film career, appearing in September, The Book of Revelation, The Bank and The Bet, with her performance in the latter garnering an AFI Nomination for Best Supporting Actress in Film. She has performed with many major theatre companies, including Company B Belvoir (The Lonesome West, Yibiyung, Ray's Tempest), Queensland Theatre Company (Betrayal), Melbourne Theatre Company (The Memory of Water), Griffin Theatre Company (The Emperor of Sydney), and New Theatricals (Boeing Boeing). Sibylla also enjoys an extensive and accomplished career as a voice artist.
Chloe Hooper (Author)
Chloe Hooper's The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island (2008) won the Victorian, New South Wales, West Australian and Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, as well as the John Button Prize for Political Writing, and a Ned Kelly Award for crime writing. She is also the author of two novels, A Child's Book of True Crime and The Engagement.
Sybilla Budd (Reader)
Since graduating from the prestigious Victoria College of the Arts, Sibylla Budd has enjoyed a successful career in film, television and theatre. She is best known for the role of Gabrielle in the multi award-winning drama series The Secret Life of Us for three successful seasons. Sibylla's other performances for television include, Tomorrow When the War Began, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Rake, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Redfern Now, Winners and Losers, It's a Date, Canal Road, Sea Patrol, All Saints, Kath and Kim, The Farm, Something In The Air, and most recently, Picnic at Hanging Rock.
Sibylla has also had a flourishing film career, appearing in September, The Book of Revelation, The Bank and The Bet, with her performance in the latter garnering an AFI Nomination for Best Supporting Actress in Film. She has performed with many major theatre companies, including Company B Belvoir (The Lonesome West, Yibiyung, Ray's Tempest), Queensland Theatre Company (Betrayal), Melbourne Theatre Company (The Memory of Water), Griffin Theatre Company (The Emperor of Sydney), and New Theatricals (Boeing Boeing). Sibylla also enjoys an extensive and accomplished career as a voice artist.