Colin Roderick Award Nominee: Saltwater

Saltwater by Cathy McLennan 

Everyone knows that some of those kids are innocent... your dilemma is not whether the kids are innocent, but which of the kids are innocent.’ When Cathy McLennan first steps into Townsville’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service as a young graduate she isn’t expecting a major murder case to land on her desk. The accused are four teenage boys whose family connections stretch across the water to Palm Island. As she battles to prove herself in the courtroom, Cathy realises that the truth is far more complex than she first thought. She starts to question who are the criminals and who are the victims. Saltwater tells the compelling story of one lawyer’s fight for justice amongst the beauty and the violence of this tropical paradise.

Saltwater is available in print (820A MACLE 1C SAL) in Cairns and Townsville, and as an eBook.

It has been nominated for the Colin Roderick Award.

The Colin Roderick Award is one of Australia's oldest literary awards, founded in 1967 by Professor Colin Roderick. After Professor Roderick's death in 2000, the award was renamed in his memory. The Foundation for Australian Literary Studies presents the annual award to the value of $20,000, coupled with the silver H.T. Priestley Memorial Medal. The award and medal are presented to the best original book, in the judges' opinion, that is published in Australia in the previous calendar year. Submissions must deal with any aspect of Australian life and can be in any field or genre of writing, verse or prose.