Although most of this work is based on historical facts, it reads like a fast-paced novel. Clune is right in saying that Australia's bushranging days were more brutal than the American West, but the period was never marketed as a film and literary goldmine as has been done in the US. I still cannot fathom why many of the towns in regional NSW do not continue to take greater advantage of their history. I remember driving past a sign indicating Ben Hall's grave in Forbes but there was no fanfare and little effort to make anything more of one of the most notorious Australians. I suppose it has become unfashionable. Yet Clune's work is an important piece of Australian literature and it is rather pleasant to discover an Australian literary tradition that somehow seems lost in the present time. ( )