The events of the book take place over three days, and, as with all odysseys, Gabriel encounters several obstacles. In Sydney, he loses almost all his possessions at a card game, receiving in exchange two harpoons. When he arrives in Hobart, he buys a horse, which is later stolen from him. Things start to look up when he meets an Irishman who works at the Montserrat whaling station, a day’s walk north, and who suggests that Gabriel should accompany him there and try to sell his harpoons to the owner, Mr Heron. Displaying all the prejudices of the English aristocracy, Gabriel decides the man must be a cannibal because ‘the Irish on this Isle [are] all Cannibals’, but nonetheless decides to go with him to the station. On the way he has a number of adventures, including an encounter with a convict chain-gang. The narrative gathers speed when he arrives at Mr Heron’s station and takes part in a whale hunt, which turns into a life-and-death struggle.

Gabriel is a fascinating, fully drawn character. He is clearly a well-educated man; he describes a sailor as looking like Richard III, and makes regular references to Greek mythology – the horse he buys is ‘a Grecian beast, worthy of an Odyssey such as mine’, and he curses Poseidon for his rough voyage from England. His mother is also highly educated – she speaks French and quotes Petrarch. Gabriel is interested in science – he often contemplates Sir Isaac Newton – and is something of a philosopher, who wonders, ‘If I and everyone I knew were mad, did that not mean all were quite typical specimens and therefore sane?’ Despite (or perhaps because of) his education, he is not without his prejudices – as mentioned above, he assumes, mistakenly, that  the Irishman is a cannibal, referring to him presumptuously as ‘my Cannibal’, and later opines that there is ‘no such thing’ as an ‘honest Vandemonian’.

Gabriel is also witty, especially in the first half of the book, as he makes his way to Montserrat station. He stops at a pub where he sees a young boy and observes that there is ‘a Law of Nature’ that there is a certain type of child who ‘by virtue of some … Scientifically measurable confluence of poverty, dimples, freckles, impudence, wit, selfishness and charm, can only be called an Urchin.’ The urchin in question is straight out of a Dickens novel.

There are hints from the start that something is amiss with Gabriel’s family. He says of his father, ‘I do not like him and am not like him,’ and refers, without further explanation, to his mother being ‘gently detained in the attic for her own good’. One brother has ‘cold-hearted intent’. It is not until late in the book that the reader learns the dreadful story of his dysfunctional family.

Kruimink is a shrewd observer of society, especially that of nineteenth-century England. Gabriel regrets that he and Susannah must communicate through ‘many layers of politeness and convention’. He notes that in that society, ‘the difference between a pair of white shoulders angled ever-so-slightly towards one and ever-so-slightly away from one can spell triumph, or ruin’. Later, he refers to his mother’s temporary expulsion from society, ‘a well-defended fortress’.

A striking feature of A Treacherous Country is Kruimink’s precise and evocative language. During the whale hunt, ‘the water bounced us like babes on Mother’s knee’. After a few drinks, Gabriel speaks with ‘the precision of the careful inebriate’. After he has spent one night at the whaling station, ‘already [he] could sense the thick aspic of ennui solidifying the air and suspending the men in a drifting aimlessness’.

By the end of A Treacherous Country, it becomes apparent that the true purpose of Gabriel’s Odyssey is not so much to locate Maryanne Maginn, as he thought, but to undergo a painful journey to self-knowledge. As he encounters various hardships along the way, he is forced to reflect more closely than he has before on his own character and his past behaviour, and to take proper responsibility for his actions and failures to act. A Treacherous Country is a highly accomplished first novel from a young writer worth keeping an eye on.