- Erma is a young academic angry that her research assistant Jenny, now dead from suicide, had made a formal complaint against her. Erma is a fighter and she wants answers.
- The suburbs and streets of inner city Brisbane are brought vividly to life in this extraordinary new noir thriller from former Brisbane, now Melbourne based, writer Iain Ryan. I became a fan after reading his previous novel, The Student, which was just so damn good. This one, published this month, is even better.
- Erma haunts the streets, strip clubs, music venues and seedy pubs of the hip but dark and tawdry precincts of Fortitude Valley and New Farm. There are too many missing young students. Too many questions. The atmosphere is electric and Ryan's prose is exquisite. He writes with such a deftness of touch. The action sequences, and there are many, are gripping.
- Erma's heightened anxiety causes her to be 'thrashed around by nightmares and memory' - ghosts and demons on the one hand, and family trauma on the other.
- There’s a charming earthiness to her: I...flop down on the couch and stare at the ceiling. I call the cat but the little prick doesn’t come.... Life is wasted on the stupid.
- The novel ends with a very satisfying resolution. The threads are all brought together.
- I hope Ryan pens a sequel to this absorbing read. Readers will yearn for more of Erma, and more of inner city Brisbane.
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