The luminaries : a novel
(Book)

"First published in hardcover in the United States by Little, Brown and Company, October 2013. First Back Bay paperback edition, October 2014. Originally published in Great Britain by Granta Books, August 2013"--Title page verso.

"A New York Times notable book of the year" --Cover.

"It is 1866, and Walter Moody has come to stake his claim in New Zealand's booming gold rush. On the stormy night of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of 12 local men who have met in secret to discuss a series of unexplained events: a wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to end her life, and an enormous cache of gold has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely ornate as the night sky. Richly evoking a mid-nineteenth-century world of shipping, banking, and gold rush boom and bust, [this] is at once a fiendishly clever ghost story, a gripping page-turner, and a thrilling novelistic achievement."--Page 4 of cover.

Man Booker Prize, 2013 ; Governor General's Literary Award for fiction, 2013 ; Australian International Book of the Year Award