Sarah Drummond's début, Salt Story (2013), was a memoir that celebrated the ocean and the communities that call it home. The Sound, based on historical fact, charts those similar craggy coastlines but traces the bloody voyage of nineteenth-century seal hunters navigating the belly of the Australian continent. A young Maori, Wiremu Heke (Billhook to his new companions), follows this murderous procession. While Billhook seeks his own purpose, he is inevitably entangled in the violence of the ship's crew, 'helping the white man kill the black man' until he becomes a 'man he could not like'. Drummond has a real knack for crafting a sense of menace. Men have 'piano-peg teeth'; they spit words like 'gunshots, hard and fast'. A palette of blood red and briny grey dominates. The ocean itself comes alive; dangerous and surging, the waves with 'white foam leering at their peaks'. Fish bones appear like 'strange faces' on the ocean's surface.

In more restful interludes, Drummond evokes the earthy smells and chattering sounds of the wild landscape, a world that feels organic and lived in. The detail in the rituals and stories of the indigenous people shows a keen historical touch. Less explored are the motivations behind the violence that fills The Sound. Are these men driven by more than sheer brutality? Do they feel remorse for their callousness? Some of these questions remain unanswered but the ambiguity can sometimes feel unresolved rather than unsettling.

Still, The Sound is challenging and powerful. This darkly rich work confronts the horrors of colonialism and introduces Drummond as an assured novelist.