The Rip

ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- A young woman lives on the streets and in the parks of Melbourne. She's an addict, a smalltime prostitute, devoted to her dog Sunny and her friend Anton, who give her a precarious sense of belonging. Anton is an optimist, with dreams for a better, but quite humble, future, that the girl goes along with. When he runs into someone he used to know who offers them a room in his flat, she is dubious, but Anton accepts. As Steve starts to share his access to drugs and a place to crash, what seemed like a life she had some control over rapidly spirals downwards, and Steve's behaviour becomes more aggressive and domineering…  A finely wrought and non-judgemental novel about the underside of urban life, the invisible people you pass in the streets given a kind of integrity and dignity, and with an undercurrent of undescribed menace that Brandi had shown himself to be a master of in his previous bestselling book Wimmera. Lindy Jones'It's funny how quick it happens and without you really noticing. Anton said once that it's like walking out into the sea, and you think everything's fine and the water's warm, but when you turn back you're suddenly miles from shore. I've never been much of a swimmer, but I get what he means. Like, being caught in a current or something. A rip.'

A young woman living on the street has to keep her wits about her.

Or her friends. But when the drugs kick in that can be hard.

Anton has been looking out for her. She was safe with him. But then Steve came along.

He had something over Anton. Must have. But he had a flat they could crash in. And gear in his pocket. And she can't stop thinking about it. A good hit makes everything all right.

But the flat smells weird.

There's a lock on Steve's bedroom door.

And the guy is intense.

The problem is, sometimes you just don't know you are in too deep, until you are drowning.