This is a well-written book, and entirely gripping. By turns funny, tender, and brutal, I literally could not put it down until I was done. The author nails the main and supporting characters (I recognise the people who populate the Dandenong Ranges) without veering into stereotype. I remember hooning around the Dandenongs on the pillion of a guy who grew up in The Basin, which leads a certain cinematic quality to my imagining of one of the book's key sequences. It's deftly done and not at all cringe. I do love the nod to a familiar handyman franchise which is renamed but recognisable.

Although she's definitely a morally questionable person, Olivia is smart, funny, tortured, and I like her. I understand how she feels about her family and her kids. The villains are not cartoonish, and I've hung out near some of them in the dodgier pubs in Melbourne. I'm definitely familiar with the moral ambiguity of some of the supporting characters.

I didn't expect to gasp out loud or cry, but I did both. I'm looking forward to seeing what else Mark Mupotsa-Russell writes next.