Peter Carey 
True History of the Kelly Gang 
A Novel

The international bestseller and winner of the 2001 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book.Out of 19th century Australia rides a hero of his people and a man for all nations: Ned Kelly, the son of poor Irish immigrants, viewed by the authorities as a thief (especially of horses) and, as a cold-blooded killer. To the people, though, he was a patriot hounded unfairly by rich English landlords and their stooges. In the end, Kelly and his so-called gang (his younger brother and two friends) led a massive police manhunt on a wild goose chase that lasted twenty months, in which Neds talents as a bushman were augmented by bank robberies and the support of nearly everyone not in a uniform. His one demand for which he would have surrendered himself was his jailed mothers freedom.Executed by hanging more than a century ago, speaking as if from the grave, Kelly still resonates as the most potent legend in the land down under.From the Trade Paperback edition.