Heist

At the outset of Schofield’s solid debut, only inertia is keeping cynical mining engineer Gareth Ford, who is separated from his wife and deep in gambling debt, at his job at a gold processing plant in the Australian outback. That is, until masked gunmen raid the plant’s storage vault and take him along on their getaway so people will think Ford was involved. He escapes from the robbers’ clutches and, beaten but not bowed, heads to his wife and daughter’s home in Perth, determined to protect them from the criminals’ threats of retribution. Befogged by booze and painkillers, shot three times and suffering from a swollen liver, Ford dodges crooked cops and the mine owner’s hired guns, while finding allies, albeit untrustworthy ones, in the Desert Vipers biker gang and enigmatic Detective Constable Kavanagh of the Gold Stealing Detection Unit. Schofield serves up a scorching atmosphere, colorful hard-drinking characters, and headlong momentum, only faltering with this Down Under thriller’s pat ending. [em]Agent: George Karlov, Karlov Marketing Services (Australia). (June) [/em]