Fifteen-year-old Monk lives in Chinatown with her ‘grumpy brown couch’ dad. When Santa Coy – possible boyfriend, potential accomplice – enters their lives, an intoxicating hunger consumes their home. With her dodgy dad obsessed with Santa Coy’s art, so begins a heady descent into art, casino resorts, drugs, vacant swimming pools, religion, pixelated tutorial videos, and senseless violence.

In bursts of fizzing, staccato and claustrophobic prose, this modern Australian take on the classic hard-boiled noir novel bounces you between pulverised English, elastic Cantonese and the new dialect of a digitised world.

Jamie Marina Lau’s award-winning debut novel is a brilliant and compelling tale of crime and misunderstanding that explores a multifaceted world of angst and violence. Lau is an electrifying talent.