The Nowhere Boy

The stunning debut novel by the Winner of the Allen & Unwin Fiction Prize 2025. An emotionally charged exploration of what happens when one moment changes everything.

'A gripping debut, fast-paced and wonderfully tense' - Josie Shapiro

'A finely observed tale about every parent's worst nightmare' - Gavin Strawhan

'Cleary's novel hits a precise bullseye. Be sure to put time aside as it will demand your attention.' - Wairarapa Times-Age

A child disappears in broad daylight and no one sees a thing.

Three-year-old Oliver, known as Apple Man, vanishes from a remote car park while his young father, Scott, carries fishing gear down to the beach. When he returns, the car is empty. His son has vanished without a trace.

Apple Man's mother, Fae, gets the call that shatters her life. Enraged with her ex, Scott and drowning in her own guilt, she is pulled back into Scott's orbit as police launch a desperate search across a wild coastline and dense pine forest. With every hour that passes, the case tightens around them and the question no parent can bear to answer grows louder: what if he's never coming back?

Far from the search, a grieving woman convinces herself she's been given a second chance. Tessa has lost three babies and the future she believed was hers. When she encounters a small, abandoned boy, she sees not a crime, but a miracle she cannot surrender. As the hunt intensifies, her fragile fantasy of motherhood begins to unravel.

As the pressure continues to mount, everyone involved is forced to confront the same terrifying question: when love becomes possession, how far is too far?