Beware of Dogs

Winner of the 2019 Banjo Prize for Fiction

She’s isolated. Trapped. Hunted. An almost unbearably tense Australian survival thriller.

Not much daylight left now.

So begins the field diary of Alix Verhoeven, whose impulsive acceptance of an offer to spend Easter on a remote island has turned into a terrifying ordeal. Hiding in a tiny cave, she carefully rations out her meagre supplies, while desperately trying to figure out how to escape the men hunting her. She is determined not to be a victim.

What do they want with her? She knows it’s nothing good - she overheard enough on that first night to flee. But now she’s got little food or water, no way of calling for help, and only her skills as an exploration geologist and memories of Atkinson’s Bushcraft Guide to survive.

By day she is disciplined and lives by strict plans, but at night she finds herself haunted by questions about her life that she has never wanted to face.

And her time is running out.