Welcome book clubbers and settle in for this month’s pick that will have you reading into the wee hours of the night…

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Set in the seedy underbelly of Sydney, Just Like the Night is a tense, slow burn thriller of one woman’s fight to save her daughter from a grisly fate against a powerful crime ring.

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Released on parole after eight years in prison, Sera is determined to leave her old life of grifting behind and focus on making an honest living. Under strict instruction from her Community Corrections Officer, Sera is warned against contacting her estranged adult daughter, Lena, who is involved with more than just a few shady dealings in King’s Cross.

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Unable to ignore her protective instincts, Sera soon learns of the danger Lena has waded into and the massive debt she is unable to pay on her own. With limited options that could land her back in prison, the next few days close in on Sera as she struggles to find a way back into a world she hasn’t been part of for almost a decade.

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Jumping between past and present, the novel gradually pieces Sera’s life together, from a child immersed early in easy cons and fixed card games (and their often-unsightly outcomes) with her father, to shacking up with a man I can only describe as reptilian* who is drawn to danger like a shrimp to an anglerfish**.

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As my grandpa used to say, never trust easy money you don’t find on the footpath.

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Her father, Ray (an alias, of course) is a larger-than-life figure straight out of a Raymond Chandler book who can read people as easily as a menu and whose inexhaustive vigilance kept them both on the road to avoid any unpleasant house calls.

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While theirs isn’t your typical father/daughter relationship, there is an unspoken love and trust there that strengthens Sera’s resolve to protect Lena (despite Lena being a REAL piece of work, btw) at whatever dire cost to herself.

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Taking place over a short period of time, the pressure and mental toll on Sera is keenly felt as she navigates her way through the overwhelming inner-city sprawl, trapped within the walls of a grim housing situation and in the suffocating atmosphere of a high stakes card game.

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Just Like the Night brilliantly maintains tension as the odds stack against her, and I was in full roly-poly beetle*** mode as everything came crashing down in the final chapters.

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An unlikely hero of these trying times, is Sera.

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An undeniable stand-out as a debut, Just Like the Night is both an urban thriller and slow-burn noir that had me in a chokehold until the final page, and I wager that it will be the first of many excellent and compulsive reads from this author.

Crime and mystery readers, especially those with a soft spot for old school grifters, card sharks and the seedy side of Sydney, rejoice! For this book is the gift you did not know you were waiting for.

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Five out of five aces.

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*Although it’s an insult to reptiles.

**Yes, I do watch too much David Attenborough.

***I’ll stop.

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