Landfall

An absolutely ripping read. Timely eviscerating and heartbreaking. Urgent, unsettling and impossible to put down. This made my heart ache for all the loss that's still to come, even as i tore through the pages to see how the mystery resolved itself.

Dinuka McKenzie

Bradley has done something very clever with Landfall. He entices us in with all the bells and whistles of an unputdownable crime thriller, but then demands that we pay attention and imagine what our country could look like as climate change takes hold.

Claire Nichols, ABC RN, The Bookshelf

Propulsive.

Sian Cain, The Guardian

James Bradley is a brilliant writer of fiction and non-fiction: he knows his stuff. And that’s why his depiction of Sydney in the 2050s is terrifyingly real. And also only the backdrop to the fast-paced crime novel - a missing child, an increasingly complex case, a race against the approaching cyclone. Bradley writes the climate-ravaged future as given, and instead focuses on the characters - their stories, flaws, connections. Landfall is tight, smart, evocative writing - the kind that makes you think AND feel.

Kate Mildenhall

A bleak vision of our ecological future—and a brilliant police procedural. Bradley’s most commercial novel to date is one of the highlights of my reading year.

Simon McDonald

Landfall imagines a city at the fruition of the countless warnings we've ignored: shattered, exhausted and violent. Bradley's heatwave and looming storm make for wild drama: they're also what's waiting for us, on all the evidence. This is a propulsive crime thriller, drawn from a deep understanding of our likely urban futures. James Bradley has found yet another way to smash our apathy.

Jock Serong

In Landfall, Bradley elevates the crime genre to portray a world where climate change has already landed and there’s no hiding from the consequences or the growing social divides. Absorbing, unsettling and masterfully written – Bradley’s vision of the future will stay with me for a long time.

Sara Foster

Landfall is a deeply moving thriller, with police officer Sadiya desperately searching for a missing child before a deadly storm hits Sydney. The flooded cityscape is unrecognisable, humanity teetering on the brink, its inhabitants haunted by memories of the world before. A devastating and heartbreaking portrait of a terrifying future world and the chinks of humanity left within it. Unmissable

Heather Critchlow

I loved Landfall. Of course the writing is next level - elegant and beautiful, your descriptions of decaying urban environment - and nature and its forces - just brilliant. The whole book has a very urgent, activating edge.

Paul Daley

Bradley flips the well-loved Australian trope of the missing child by transporting it from its cliched bush setting into a post-climate-apocalypse Sydney, producing a genre mash-up of cli-fi and detective fiction. In Landfall, environmental devastation is not merely a backdrop to the action; it is a central character and driving narrative. The police investigation into Casey’s disappearance is hindered by the everyday reality of living with the extreme heat and inundation of a coastal city on the brink of societal collapse. At its heart, Landfall is a tale of human resilience and connection, urging collective action on climate change from a dedicated writer who will persist until we heed the call.

Justine Hyde, The Sydney Morning Herald

Propulsive and thought-provoking.

Miriam Cosic, The Saturday Paper

This book filled me with such a creeping sense of unease (in a good bookish way). While Landfall holds up entirely as fantastic crime fiction, it's elevated by the setting of a city in the depth of a climate catastrophe.

Mercs Book Nook

One of the pleasures of reading Landfall is that it is a stirring page-turner. The division of the book into five days creates a time pressure and a tense atmosphere of impending doom. Landfall is a haunting and propulsive crime novel set in 2050s Sydney. Through its compelling narrative, Bradley weighs the value of a human life on an ecologically ravaged planet. What sets Landfall apart from other crime novels is Bradley’s laser gaze, particularly his evocation of the experience of climate refugees. The recollections of all three characters deftly map the past. They provide a rich undercurrent that deepens the main narrative.

Catherine McKinnon, The Conversation