James Bradley’s thrilling, unsettling crime novel is set in a flooded Sydney in 2050

James Bradley is a brilliant writer of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. His recent book Deep Water (2024) is an elegiac essay in response to the wonders of the planet’s oceans. It celebrates undersea mysteries and the marvels of the surface, denounces the slavery and oppression connected with trade routes, and extols the sensuality of swimming and surfing.

Deep Water increased Bradley’s international reputation, but it was also an important milestone in a writing life dedicated to awakening readers to the harmony of the natural world and the need to act urgently to prevent human-induced climate catastrophe.

Landfall, Bradley’s seventh novel, continues his engagement with the environment. Coming on the heels of Clade (2015) and Ghost Species (2020) – both novels set in a precarious future – it again takes up the subject of a warming world.

Review: Landfall – James Bradley (Penguin)

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.

The novel’s future world is one of extreme weather events and soaring daily temperatures. Parts of the metropolis are permanently underwater due to the Big Melt, a glacier event 20 years earlier that has caused sea level rise across the globe. The air is suffocatingly humid. Everyone carries water and is constantly thirsty. Waves lap at asphalt roads, parks are crowded with tents and people queue daily to fill water containers from plastic tanks. Children are sullen or silent; barking dogs harass. The homeless flock to food vans near Central Station.

In certain parts of the city, the urban environment is nothing more than “roofless buildings choked with garbage, dead trees, the rusting shells of abandoned cars and trucks”. Apartment blocks and houses need repair. Sandbags shore up bridges and makeshift walkways run above tidal waters, giving access to dwellings.

The divide between rich and poor has become more pronounced. The wealthy work in high-tech offices with AI assistants, security guards and air-conditioning; they live in luxury homes and their children still attend violin lessons. There is a lottery affordable only to those on high salaries, and the prize is resettlement in New Zealand. Property deals and capitalist ambitions are still in play.

Communities are stressed; there is anger in the streets. Sexism and racism are rife. Trust in authority is low.

A laser gaze

In this frazzled and divided environment, Senior Detective Sadiya Azad receives an early morning report about a five-year-old child, Casey Mitchell, who has not been seen since the night before. Casey and her family live at the Floodline, a reimagined Botany Bay, where the poor have taken over the higher, drier floors of abandoned buildings that rise, like shabby sentinels, from the water.

Sadiya and her new partner, Detective Sergeant Paul Findlay, start their investigations at the site of the child’s disappearance: an empty building owned by a company named Horizon and marked for redevelopment as part of a project that will erect a new seawall and “three thousand dwellings”.

Sadiya and Paul’s investigations are constantly frustrated. Cyclone Nasreen is due to hit the city in five days and untold damage is expected, so most of the police force is directed towards storm preparation and protection. When Horizon employee Nina Lukic also goes missing and a silver electric car seen outside the empty building is connected to her, Sadiya and Paul seek the help of Horizon’s top executive, Oliver Manning.

In speculative fiction, technology is foregrounded, either by its presence or absence. In Landfall, Bradley introduces new technology as a given. Rich and poor wear glasses that receive constant news feeds and have the ability to film events, send emails and share photos. Citizens’ data – their individual movements through the city, their finance, housing and vehicle information – can be quickly obtained by police.

Surveillance ability has increased for the poor as well as the rich. Police actions are constantly being filmed by disgruntled citizens. AI assistants are part of daily life for the middle as well as the upper classes.

What sets Landfall apart from other crime novels is Bradley’s laser gaze, particularly his evocation of the experience of climate refugees. Three perspectives are beautifully and intricately woven together: that of Sadiya, her father Arman Azad, who is suffering from dementia, and Tasim, a 15-year-old Indonesian illegal immigrant. The recollections of all three characters deftly map the past. They provide a rich undercurrent that deepens the main narrative.

The Azads are migrants from Bangladesh. Through his fractured memories, Arman summons the day he and his family sought refuge from rising floodwater at the top of their Bangladesh apartment building. Arman managed to throw young Sadiya into a rescue boat, but strong currents swept away his wife and oldest daughter.

In Australia, many years later, Arman’s recollections unravel him, but Sadiya’s memories strengthen her resolve. Having faced tremendous loss, she is tough, unrelenting. Her determination drives her to follow every clue, no matter how slight, in an effort to find the missing child.

Tasim, having escaped his Australian detention centre, is eking out a living on the fringes of the city. His daily life is troubled, but it is the remembered horror of the overheated Indonesia he has escaped that terrifies him.

In one gruelling memory, there is a power failure when temperatures are well above 50°C and Tasim’s sister, Dewie, suffering heat exhaustion, dies in his arms. Seeking coolness, Tasim wanders the streets, passing people lying “motionless” in doorways, and arrives at a river, where he wades through warm water in which dead bodies float among the living.

In Sydney, having survived a dangerous sea crossing, Tasim is comforted by photos of Dewie. When he witnesses the abduction of Casey, he too commits to finding her.

Greed and compassion

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.

Through Sadiya and Tasim’s storylines, Bradley cleverly sets up two separate searches for the missing child. He draws on different social situations to portray the immoral lows of human behaviour and skilfully misdirect readers toward a range of plausible perpetrators. Importantly, when the real culprit is discovered, it is narratively satisfying.

As the crime genre demands of its leading detectives, Sadiya has her share of personal troubles: colleagues out for revenge; a commander-in-chief hassling her to find Casey, dead or alive; her wariness about opening up to her partner. She also has a father in need. The novel’s depiction of Arman’s vulnerability is deeply moving. His effort to comprehend a world he doesn’t recognise and the remorse-filled love he bears for his dead wife and child are a plaintive cry.

Yet the beating heart of the novel is its rendering of human kindness, there in the main characters as well as the minor ones: a hand held unexpectedly, a body washed with care, a surprising offer of help, tender scenes of human connection. Doctors are dedicated to the needs of their patients. The police force, despite having belligerent cops, also has solicitous ones, like Sadiya and Paul, who seek to make a difference. Tasim, though on the lowest rung of society, is morally superior to many, and more than once attends to others, risking his own life.

Landfall is a novel that thrills as much as it unsettles. On one level, it is a story of human greed: it registers the desire for individual security and wealth, and the lengths ruthless individuals will go to protect their own interests. On another level, it is a story about the fragile bonds of family and identity, the necessity of friendship and the importance of compassion.

It is also a cautionary tale about a future climate-changed world, where habitat loss and class inequality have led to social disruption and desperation. Through this warning, Landfall challenges human apathy and resonates as a powerful and persuasive call to action. Bradley convincingly represents the difference good deeds can make in a troubled environment. Moral cause and courage are important to the survival of one child, but they may also be the qualities needed to save our planet.

Catherine McKinnon has received funding from Creative Australia.