Specialises in: 

Novels straddling the literary/genre line, historical and literary fiction, thrillers and crime. 

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Services offered: 

Three and six month mentoring.​
 

About Paul:

Paul Howarth is a British-Australian author whose debut novel “Only Killers and Thieves” was published in 2018 by Pushkin Press (UK) and HarperCollins (US). Set on the Australian frontier in 1885, “Only Killers and Thieves” was the Times’ book of the month, a Sunday Times editor’s pick, an Amazon, iBooks and IndieNext book of the month, a Barnes & Noble Discover pick, and was chosen by Amazon as one of the best novels of 2018. Only Killers and Thieves won the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction 2018, awarded to the best novel by a debut or emerging author published in America that year. 

 

Paul was named by the Independent as one of the UK’s ten debut novelists to watch in 2018, and holds an MA in Creative Writing from UEA, where he was awarded the Malcolm Bradbury Scholarship.

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Only Killers and Thieves: 

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Blurb: 

Set in the searing, deserted outback of 19th century Australia, a powerful debut novel about family, empire and race

One scorching day in Australia's deserted outback, Tommy McBride and his brother Billy return home to discover that their parents have been brutally murdered.
 

Distraught and desperate for revenge, the young men set out in search of the killers. But the year is 1885, and the only man who can help them is the cunning and ruthless John Sullivan – wealthy landowner and their father's former employer.

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Rallying a posse of men, Sullivan defers to the deadly Inspector Noone and his Queensland Native Police - an infamous arm of colonial power whose sole purpose is the 'dispersal' of Indigenous Australians in 'protection' of settler rights. The retribution that follows will leave a lasting scar on the colony and the country it later becomes. It will also haunt Tommy for the rest of his life.

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Set against Australia's stunningly harsh landscapes, Only Killers and Thieves is a compelling, devastating novel about cruelty and survival, injustice and honour - and about two brothers united in grief, then forever torn apart.

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Reviews:​

'Paul Howarth brings early Australia to life, bloody warts and all, in an epic tale of murder, revenge, and colonial oppression, with very little room for redemption. The story and his words will stay with you, long after you have finished the book.' New York Review of Books

 

'Howarth's stunning debut has shades of Cormac McCarthy and Patrick deWitt...a book that grips from the outset and entertains even as it educates us about an appalling part of Australia's history. Epic in scope, Only Killers and Thieves is a study in morality in a land where white vigilantism has never seemed more depraved.' The Irish Times

'Prose like that arrives direct from Cormac McCarthy's dusty Southwest...Howarth's spotlights how arbitrary frontier justice can be. But he also asks: How much less arbitrary is a purportedly civilised society?' Washington Post

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Read more about Paul's debut novel Only Killers And Thieves here >>

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More resources: 

Website: harpercollins.com

Twitter: @paulhowarth_

Listen to Paul on The Riff Raff Podcast