Dust Off the Bones by Paul Howarth is the sequel to Only Killers and Thieves that introduced the two McBride Brothers, Billy and Tommy, and explained how the rest of their family was murdered and aborigines were wrongly blamed. A posse led by a very evil man wiped out a whole tribe in retaliation. This book picks up five years later and follows both brothers and how their lives developed all the while they were under the eye of Noone, the evil man who wants to make sure they keep their mouths shut.

The villain of the book, Noone, is truly one of the most vicious bad guys I have read about. As he and his psychopath assistant move through life, systematically eliminating any opposition, you lost hope that somehow justice will be served. The author obviously wants to shine a light on the attempted extermination of the aborigine population, but he does this through a well thought-out and vividly executed story that pulls the reader into the lives of the two McBride brothers who are both truly haunted by their role in the massacre and terrified at the thought of Noone.

Dust Off the Bones was an excellent sequel, a story of violence and redemption set in Colonial Australia that the author gives colour and realistic detail to. I was totally enthralled by this novel. ( )

Dust off the Bones is set in Australia in the late 1800s. As such it begins as a familiar yarn, two brothers face a tragic event that sets them off on different life paths. It's a story that has been told for a thousand years, in a thousand ways.

The writing is crisp and the characters engaging, and thus the reader is drawn in. Somewhere about 2/3 through the book. there is a subtle shift and the book becomes something else.

Instead of coming to the surface to wrap up the story, it dives deeper. Deeper into the implications of the past. Deeper into the role of guilt in our daily actions. Deeper into the role violence plays in our society. Deeper into the characters themselves.

Author Paul Howarth has constructed q captivating morality story located in a world few of us are familiar with but is not much different from the one we inhabit. Part thriller, part family saga, and part historical fiction, Dust Off the Boners should be at the top of every readers list. ( )

Responsibility, redemption, and squandered chances are among the themes in Paul Howarth’s second novel, which will live in your memory long after turning the last page. Just as indelible is the portrait of the Australian outback—the dust and drought—and the hardness and hardiness of the people who take up residence in such a hostile environment.
Billie and Tommy McBride, ages sixteen and fourteen, respectively, arrive at their remote home to find their mother and father shot dead, and their younger sister Mary, dying. The Native Police arrive to investigate, headed by a sociopathic white inspector named Noone. The police claim to believe that the crime was committed by an aboriginal group called the Kurrong, and set off in pursuit, taking the two teenagers with them.
Eventually, they find the group and slaughter them—men, women, and children alike, upwards of a hundred people, except for a few women they keep alive for other purposes. The boys are made complicit in these depredations and the subsequent revisions of events. The rest of the novel is about how the McBride boys cope with that guilt and horror.
Noone remains a dominant presence in their lives, even though they rarely see him. He has insisted the boys split up and have nothing to do with each other or he will return and kill them, any family they have, and everyone they care about. They believe him.
Billie marries successfully to a widow with a sizeable station. Tommy, with his black companion Arthur, has a job on another distant station, where he’s putting up fencing under the thumb of a vindictive overseer. In a confrontation Tommy inadvertently kills the overseer. He and Arthur flee, and, with the telegraph likely one step ahead of them, lie low.
What modest successes either young man achieves are tainted by the anxiety that the annihilation of the Kurrong will come to light, that Noone will decide they are a risk to his position and he and his minions will track them down, and, in Tommy’s case, that the murder he committed will come out.
If you’re familiar with the writing of Cormac McCarthy or Donald Ray Pollock, you may find Howarth’s bracing writing style similar. Reading this book is like having all your veins and arteries cleaned out, cleared of everything easy and soft. While the writing is hard as a diamond, it’s also beautiful and properly paced to magnify the weight of the men’s actions. ( )