Trent Dalton, Gravity Let Me Go

- The only Trent Dalton book I'd read before this one was his bestselling first novel Boy Swallows Universe, which was just so damn good. As was the TV series. 

- His new novel Gravity Let Me Go is a different beast altogether. It's lighter and far less realistic but it's also immensely enjoyable. What's on show is Dalton's huge talent for brilliant comic writing. His prose is slick and utterly absorbing. 

- Noah Cork is a freelance journalist who was fired by the Murdoch-owned The Courier Mail. He was famous for his writing on crime in the Brisbane area.  Unfortunately the police hated him for his frequent condemnation of their ineptitude and put pressure on his piss weak bosses. 

- He has two daughters - Erin, who is fifteen years old, and Clementine, who is twelve. Erin is a pessimist: ‘The world is sick and dying and cannot be saved, and anybody who doesn’t see this truth is either wilfully ignorant or profoundly stupid’. Clem on the other hand is utterly delightful. She's highly intelligent and into literature - ‘Is this a circumstance of great peril, Dad?’

- Noah has just published a book about an unsolved crime - ‘Anonymous Source: The Disappearance and Discovery of Tamsin Fellows’. It's become a bestseller.

- He and his family live in the upmarket Northern Brisbane suburb of Jubilee. Their modest house is in a cul-de-sac and they're friendly with all their neighbours. The trouble is there's been a kidnapping and murder of one of them, and, predictably, the police are getting nowhere.  

- At times the story gets quite weird as Dalton indulges in all sorts of comical extremities, but it stays absorbing. It's a thriller and the ending is surprising and very satisfying. 

- I relished his prose. He's an exceptionally talented writer.