James Moloney is an Australian-born writer, whose work is largely aimed at children and young readers, although he has written novels for adults. Since his first book was published in 1992, Moloney has been nominated for a large number of literary prizes and won several, including the Herald Sun Prize for Young Adult Literature and Children Peace Literature Prize in 1997.
Moloney's 2008 novel aimed at the young adult market, Kill the Possum, portrays the drama of complex family relations, made up of difficult and sometimes disturbed individuals. The novel's protagonist shifts throughout, moving first from teenager Kirsty Beale to Dylan, a boy in her class at school, creating a sense of uncertainty and foreboding. Ending in tragedy, the novel is an unsettling presentation of teenage ambition and violence in a murky adult world, showing just how far some will go to gain justice as they see it.
