NOT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
EST 1983
RIVER CITY
A missing kingpin. A reluctant son. Enemies on all sides - and one explosive underworld war.
The 2025 Australian Fiction Prize winner is an unputdownable, take-no-prisoners thriller for all fans of Animal Kingdom, Gabriel Bergmoser and Jack Reacher.
In Brisbane's criminal underbelly, chaos is the only constant.
When feared crime boss Jack Cavarly mysteriously vanishes, his reluctant son Rain is dragged into a world he's spent years avoiding. Between a volatile brother, a dysfunctional crew, and enemies circling like vultures, Rain is barely keeping everything together when a case of mistaken identity threatens to bring everything crashing down.
A disgraced cop chasing redemption becomes entangled in the Cavarlys' bloody turf war. A ruthless rival sees her chance to strike. And a wildcard with a killer vendetta is ready to burn it all to the ground.
Darkly funny, razor sharp, and drenched in tension, River City is a gritty Australian crime thriller where loyalty is fragile, violence is inevitable, and survival is never guaranteed.
ABOUT TROY HENDERSON
Human writer.
Troy Henderson is a fiction writer from Brisbane, Australia, where he has lived his whole life aside from a two-year stint in London.
He won The Australian Fiction Prize for his novel River City, due out with HarperCollins in January 2027.
His first book, Head Grenade, was shortlisted in the Hawkeye Publishing Manuscript Development Prize and the Queensland Writers Centre’s Adaptable and Publishable Programs, respectively. Head Grenade was published through Hawkeye Publishing in October 2023.
His short stories have longlisted in the Australian Writers’ Centre Furious Fiction competition, and placed in the GenreCon Short Story competition, and FLEUR Flash Fiction Contest. In 2024, he was commissioned to contribute to the anthology Is This Working? and also appeared at the 2024 Brisbane Writers Festival.
He's working on his next novels, right now.
HEAD GRENADE
Manny never asked to be different, to have a power that could bring the dead back to life. But when he resurrected his dead goldfish as a child, he knew he was cursed with an inexplicable power.
Now, decades later, he’s working in a Brisbane hospital, surrounded by a cast of oddball characters who make his ordinary life feel anything but. His doomsday-prepping aunt, his unravelling housemate, and his new animal-activist girlfriend who’s immune to pain quickly complicate his life. But things take a sinister turn when a nefarious individual starts hunting him down, determined to uncover his secrets.
“Sharks don't kill people, vending machines kill people.” - TH
Short Stories
“Life is strange. Strange is good.” - TH