In the small town of Barrow, Australia, people go about their ordinary lives. They drive to work through the dense state forest. They raise their families. They flirt and yearn. They lie and confess. Some of them leave home. Some of them return. Darkness thrums beneath the surface of these ordinary lives: the violence of one man, a serial killer whose murders made Barrow infamous. His 12 victims are long gone, but their deaths are felt --- beyond the forest where they were buried, beyond this country, beyond even this time. In the past, where a young woman on a school trip to Rome sees something she shouldn’t have. In the present, where a man confronts an ancient grief on the suburban streets of Texas. In the future, in the hands of journalists, podcast hosts and television actors whose livelihoods hinge on the twin spectacles of loss and violence.

In September 1883, a small town in the South Australian outback huddles under strange, vivid sunsets. Six-year-old Denny Wallace has gone missing during a dust storm, and the entire community is caught up in the search for him. As they scour the desert and mountains for the lost child, the residents of Fairly --- newlyweds, farmers, mothers, indigenous trackers, cameleers, children, artists, schoolteachers, widows, maids and policemen --- confront their relationships, both with one another and with the landscape they inhabit. The colonial Australia of THE SUN WALKS DOWN is noisy with opinions, arguments, longings and terrors. It's haunted by many gods --- the sun among them, rising and falling on each day in which Denny could be found, or lost forever.

Ranging from Australia to Greece, England to a Pacific island, the stories in Fiona McFarlane’s story collection journey across continents, eras and genres, charting the pivotal moments of people’s lives. In “Mycenae,” a middle-aged couple embarks on a disastrous vacation in the company of old friends. In “Good News for Modern Man,” a scientist conducts research on a small, remote island, where he is haunted by a colossal squid and the ghost of Charles Darwin. And in the title story, an Australian farmer turns to Old Testament methods to relieve a fatal drought. All are confronted with events that make them see themselves and their lives from a fresh perspective --- and what they do as a result is as unpredictable as life itself.

Widowed Ruth lives a quiet life by the sea until a woman claiming to be a government case worker comes to her door one wet night and stays. Frida’s presence subtly changes the environment, as Ruth suddenly starts recalling her childhood in Fiji and seems to hear a tiger roaming outside her window. Yes, there’s a dark secret in the past, but THE NIGHT GUEST is more concerned with creeping fear, the long road of aging, and the inviolable presence of the colonial past.