Nathan Besser - Wild

Nathan Besser's Wild takes us on a visceral, high octane journey through the grimy underbelly of thriving 17th century London and into the lives of Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Wild & Jack Sheppard as the three men collide with disastrous results. 

It's part true crime thriller, part rags to riches tale, part rollicking adventure! 

Nathan is in conversation with author Kerri Sackville!  

About the Book

Wild is the much anticipated second novel from Australian author Nathan Besser. After the success of his debut Man in the Corner, a psychological thriller, Nathan returns to the crime genre but this time in the form of a historical fiction that is best described as The Favourite meets Blackadder.

Nathan takes us on a visceral high octane journey through the grimy London streets into the lives of Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Wild and Jack Sheppard as the three men collide with disastrous results.

Jonathan Wild is a former buckle marker’s apprentice who through manipulation and cunning has risen to become the corrupt and feared Thief-Taker General of London. Jack Sheppard is a petty thief and one of Wild’s network of spies. When Wild double crosses him Jack becomes one of the most notorious criminals in London because of his ability to pull off seemingly impossible escapes from prison. Wild and Sheppard are ultimately each other’s downfall and Daniel Defoe chronicles it all while struggling with his own debts and failures as a husband and father.

On writing Wild, Nathan says: "I hadn’t intended to write a piece of fiction based upon fact, more upon the milieu of the Great and Monstrous London, as Daniel Defoe once called it. However, the handwritten documents that elucidated recollections of Wild’s youth, his relationships with a variety of characters (including Defoe and Lord Uxbridge) and his unusual perspective on the human plight, were so rich in detail and narrative gold, that it was nigh impossible to proceed in any other direction than the one taken."

Wild is part true crime thriller, part rags to riches tale and part rollicking adventure story. It is hilarious, delightfully outrageous and brilliantly written.

Praise

About the Author

Nathan Besser was born in 1981 in Sydney. While attending secondary school he met his future wife Ariela Bard. They now live together in Sydney with their three children.

Nathan wrote poetry and short fiction from the age of sixteen. After completing high school he worked in various jobs, including as a delivery driver, security guard, clinical trial participant, hotel manager and call centre operator. During this time he wrote for various publications, and had three stories published in the Best Australian Stories collection. After failing to find a publisher for his first novel, he devoted his time solely to business for several years, buying and starting several small businesses. These included a restaurant delivery company, an online alcohol delivery company, a cold chain logistics service and two lingerie stores.

Following the birth of his second child, during a short holiday in Japan, he decided to begin writing again. He set to work on what would become Man in the Corner, his first published) novel.