Opal Fever: Nicholas Miles

An opal buyer is ambushed in the remote Australian interior and hunch-backed Chilla and his young companion Snow escape with $150,000 in gems. Burying the swag, they hole up in a mining settlement until the hue and cry dies down. It's a rough life in the settlement: night and day, men and women dream of opal, dig for opal, live for opal. To Delese, falling in love with Chilla, it means security for her and her baby; to bluff, warm-hearted Bill the hunt for it is the only life he wants; to Chilla and Snow, it means freedom but it also threatens to destroy the strange intense bond between them. To all of them it is a fever, creating deep love and loyalty in some and overpowering greed and envy in others. An authentic story of human endurance.