Ruby McCoy (aka Red) is a rebellious teenager living with her dreamer/ schemer father, Sid. The McCoys have a history of being downtrodden by the Healy family. The latest Healy is a police sergeant. Sid is a larrikin whose appreciation of a quick dollar is greater than that for the law. The overtly corrupt Sergeant Healy uses his position within the law itself to make even quicker, bigger dollars. The two families are set on a collision course, with Red caught in the centre.
It’s the early 1990s and the force is rife with dirty cops – none dirtier than Healy. Sid is coerced into Healy’s enterprises. Then, after he and his accomplice, Chook, are set up, Sid is jailed leaving Red alone. Her friend, Stevie, and his family take her in, but she’s drawn (fatefully) back to her home where she’s confronted by Sergeant Healy.
This is a retelling of the Ned Kelly story, with crossovers of Kelly’s Jerilderie Letter. This story is in the country’s DNA; there’s no need for spoiler alerts. How that story is retold without reverting to cliché is pivotal to its success. The one abiding image of Ned is his armoured last stand. As the narrative reaches its crescendo this image is handled with dexterity, having been foreshadowed seamlessly into the early narrative.
Importantly, Red narrates her own story. The language (especially the lack of punctuation) is styled to indicate her lack of education and/or her subversion of societal norms. The text has also been ‘censored’ with the swearing redacted, educated guesses notwithstanding. Time-specific cultural references are scattered throughout, making this a marvellous – and often humorous – 1990s time warp. This is a very clever reworking.
Reviewed by Bob Moore
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Felicity McLean is an author and journalist.
Her debut novel, The Van Apfel Girls are Gone has been published in more than half a dozen countries. It was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick in the US, and was shortlisted for the Indie Book Awards and longlisted for the UK’s Dagger Awards and the Davitt.
Her book Body Lengths, co-written with Olympian Leisel Jones, was Apple Books Best Biography of the Year and won the 2016 Australian Book Industry Awards People’s Choice for small publisher Adult Book of the Year.
As a journalist she’s interviewed authors including Irvine Welsh, James Patterson, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Gillian Mears, Charlotte Wood, Tom Keneally, Lynda La Plante, Nicholas Sparks, Jessica Rudd, Judy Nunn, Wayne Macauley, Chris Flynn, Kirsten Tranter, Joanna Trollope, Jo Nesbo, Cathy Kelly, Kathy Lette, Anne Rice, Michael Robotham, Oliver Jeffers, Chad Harbach and Tara Moss.
Felicity has appeared at Bryant Park Reading Room in New York, Sydney Writers’ Festival, Adelaide Writers’ Week and others.
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