Nonetheless, it must be definitively stated that One is no second-rate McCarthy facsimile. It requires considerable chutzpah on behalf of both author and publisher to use a Sidney Nolan reproduction as your cover art, but this novel approaches the likes of Voss and A Fringe of Leaves as Australian literature of a superior kind. Certainly, Holland's spartan prose style and compelling descriptions of the outback environment are at times a dazzling combination.

The standard drops a notch or two when the narrative relies upon extended dialogues involving the book's two key characters. Both the trooper, Nixon, and the criminal, James Kenniff, occasionally talk themselves into knots – Nixon, in particular, comes across as uncomfortably righteous at times. Here, Holland might have been better advised to follow McCarthy in another way by ditching the 'perverted commas', as James Joyce termed them, and sticking more to third-person narration.

Minor objections aside, it would be surprising were Queensland to produce a better novel this year. Indeed, One may well rank with the best Australia has to offer in 2016.