- Frankly, I was a little disappointed with this novel. It didn't quite live up to the hype that preceded its publication last week.
- It’s a good story, exceptionally well written, but there is little else to it. A mystery, a thriller, with a near-future setting. A lot's happening on the surface, but there's little depth or meaning underneath.
- British migrants are desperate to leave the UK because some sort of pandemic has decimated the cities still under a regime of economic austerity. Australia, on the other hand needs skilled workers so has a program in place to ship them here, once they've cleared rather arduous health and security checks.
They are shipped, not by plane, but by a large sail boat, to save on fuel costs! People smugglers and asylum seekers and their flimsy boats. These pre-authorised UK migrants are of course a cut above the 'browns' but a nasty virus on the ship wreaks havoc, with many deaths during the long nine week voyage. That changes everything. ‘We were a threat, the enemy. They wanted to send us home’.
- There are now echoes everywhere - Christmas Island, Nauru, Manus, the Tampa, The government is ‘weeks from an election’. The migrants have no hope in hell of settling in Australia. We know this story.
- Predictably sprinkled throughout are references to every detention event - stranded kids; hunger strikes; sewn lips; suicides; cruel guards, appalling conditions; an unsympathetic public.
- We feel for them, but they are white English speakers after all. That, frankly, makes it easier for us readers to digest, and renders real world comparisons far less powerful. I was expecting something far more politically biting and savage.
- As a thriller, the final twist at the end is superb.
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