Final Round

by Ross Barrett

Sol, a young truck driver with a turbulent past, drives his vehicle off the road into a tree in the Adelaide Hills. He finds himself with a mangled knee in a hospital bed next to Dave, an ageing pulp fiction writer and former war correspondent. Dave relieves the tedium by needling the new arrival at every opportunity. The result is a brawl that sees both men on the floor, with the petite Nurse Sarah struggling to haul the burly truckie away from her older patient’s throat. From such an inauspicious beginning, the relationship between the two men develops, overcoming the barriers of their initial mutual mistrust and reticence. As Dave comes to suspect that, despite their differences, he and Sol share a similar dark secret, he adopts a course of action, encouraged by Sarah, that compels the younger man to face a hidden truth, and offers Dave one last chance at fulfillment.

260 pages, Paperback

Published November 11, 2016