Monasteries and gaols: David Foster, reflects thatduring the course of his life the monasteries have emptied while the gaols aredoing nicely. Set in Goulburn and its surrounds, where Foster resides, The Contemptuary is a lament for a dyingfaith, a commentary on prison life and, perhaps unexpectedly from Foster inthis, his sixteenth novel, an unputdownable whodunnit.

'Attempt to characterise Foster's writing andeventually one will run out of adjectives. There is simply no one remotely likehim in contemporary Australian fiction. He is so far ahead of everyone elsethat it's not funny.' - Australian Book Review