This is a wonderful piece of writing that I thoroughly enjoyed. There have been some great books written lately based in the Australian Outback, and this is certainly one of them. Englishman Benedict Fotheringham-Gaskill would have got quite a shock coming back to Australia, where he was used to life in Sydney’s Bondi. It’s a real eye opener for him to experience the small country town called The Leap, where it’s like he landed on a different planet. Especially with it’s unusual mix of people, with very different views to him.
This is a special book that gave me many hours of enjoyment. It’s well worth a read. 5/5 Star Rating.

The Leap by Paul Daley is a profoundly disturbing depiction of an outback small town in New South Wales.

English diplomat Benedict Fotheringham-Gaskill has been posted to Canberra, arriving in Sydney in January 2020 when a lot of the Australian east coast has raging fires creating a smoke filled environment. While this is obviously difficult, Ben is finding his return to Australia below his expectations having stayed there in his youth. While waiting for his family to join him, he tries to settle into his work and living in Canberra. An overseas incident involving the death of a young woman from a town called The Leap allegedly at the hands of two British woman has him being sent to the town to try and get the family of the ‘murdered’ girl to support a reasonable justice process.

Ben is confronted by racism, bigotry, sexism and any other ‘ism’ you can think of. He is drawn into a drunken culture which becomes very confronting.

The writing style is excellent and the plot development moves at a fast pace. Descriptions of people (such as that of Scott Morrison), events (the kangaroo shooting expedition and pig hunt) and places in and around The Leap are captivating while at times being horrific!

Great characterisation and a storyline that is enthralling. While at times very dark, the author has put in humour which gives a bit of relief.

Great read and difficult to put down!


This review is based on a complimentary copy from Simon & Schuster via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

#TheLeap #NetGalley

I liked Paul's book the leap
It was an interesting story thriller of the Australian outback with Ben the character leaping back and forth he is also going back through some of the most Australian historical events and thrillers interesting story and great descriptive language

The Leap is one hell of a ride. It's outback noir on steroids, well more correctly, blue pills.

This book was insane - it's got religious zealots (Deuteronomy anyone?), racists, bigots, flat earthers, gun toting MAGA worshippers, feral pig hunters, misogynists and every other horrible Australian cliche and a rather English diplomat who gets sent to the arse end of Australia, a town called The Leap.

Benedict Fotheringham-Gaskill is a British diplomat stationed in Canberra, when he gets sent to The Leap, a backwards town in the wilds of the Australian outback. While there he falls prey to his own weaknesses and this leads to a whirlwind of poor choices and threatens to derail his mission as well as his new posting.

There are many issues raised in this book regarding colonialism and indigenous rights, and the views of most of the town inhabitants are more than eye opening. While nothing is glossed over about the past, one of the indigenous characters uses humour to get his point across, and this works in this story.

If you like your characters a bit strung out and living life on the edge then this socio-political thriller should hit the spot.

I think I need to chase down the author's previous offering, Jesustown, if this is what can be expected.

A propulsive, confronting, thought-provoking literary thriller.

This story is told from the perspective of Benedict Fotheringham-Gaskill, a realistically flawed human, with a history of traumatic experiences during his work as a long-term British diplomat. He experiences flashbacks throughout the book, which were honestly difficult to read at times.

Welcome to The Leap - `Think three-fifths of the way to fuck-all-nowhere-ville. Pioneering grazing family. Once hallowed farming country gone to shit. Rabbit plagues and feral pigs. Never-ending drought. Full of Flat Earth Party-voting, climate-change-denying, God-bothering, gun-nut, ground-zero, wife-beating, racist, fundamentalist f*ckers. Pardon my French. Apart from that it’s just a great place. ’

I enjoyed Benedict as the protagonist, despite a series of poor decisions during his time in The Leap, he was observant and able to critique aspects of Australian behaviour, culture and conscientious evasion as an ‘outsider’.

I appreciate how this story unflinchingly tackles many historical truths, offences of racial and class divide, while intertwining dark humour and cleverly highlights how the narrative of the dominant culture reinforces multigenerational misremembering.

This is an incredibly raw and relevant story; however, it is not an easy read - it does contain offensive and derogatory language, misogyny, racism, violence and many difficult truths about Australia's history.

With thanks to Simon & Schuster (Australia) for an advanced reading copy of this compelling story, in exchange for an honest review.

The Leap is an interesting ride into outback Australia through the eyes of "a mid to late career diplomat." Benedict Fotheringham-Gaskill has moral injuries resulting from his previous postings abroad, and is whiny for most of the book. He lands in Bondi and hates it for not living up to the memories he had of it: "Experience had also taught him that a revisited beloved place rarely lives up to the memory of it." He is visiting during the 2019 bushfires, but still seems to feel robbed: "The fires had taken that travel-brochure-blue water refracted through the signature blinding sunshine, for so long frozen in his memory. They had stolen the sky, that pristine Arcadian light. Boxed it up in black and grey." He also hates the young people who utilise it: "And all those bloody bogans on the street and in the bars had completed the sham." The only thing he hated that I agreed with was Prime Minister Scott Morrison: "a running to fat, obdurate-looking chap who resembled nothing more closely than a Clapham used car salesman with a sleazy grin". Ben thinks Morrison is a "rolled-gold tosser". I tend to agree.

Perhaps what stopped me from absolutely loving this book was disliking Ben who uses his wife Lucy to feel adequate, and a good helping of cultural cringe. Seeing our special places, people, and racism through the eyes of a British diplomat was at times pretty hard: "The fabled Aussie bush and its lonely highways were a haven for human monsters." Look so some serial killers targeted backpackers, okay, it wasn't ideal, but it ain't who we are, is it?

Seeing Ben, with an outsider perspective, say our remote towns are full of "Flat Earth Party-voting climate change denying, wife-battering, God-bothering, gun-nut, ground-zero, racist, fundamentalist f*ckers" might rev up a bit of 'love it or leave' in all of us. I think the writer, Paul Daley, does this purposely and cleverly, to get us to own and see all of us, including the frontier violence that set up our relationship to Indigenous Australians. It doesn't make it a comfortable read, but go there anyway...