Nate is a uni student in trouble – and his problems go well beyond bad grades and skipping classes. He’s a small-time weed dealer whose supply is running low, but his friend and supplier, Jesse, is missing. Nate is losing customers, facing eviction and has no money to help his parents with their second mortgage. Two bikies show up to claim from Nate the $45 000 that Jesse owes, and they beat him up to show him what’s in store if he fails to come up with the money.

The next few days of Nate’s life are a blur of drugs, sex and violence as he tries to find Jesse and uncovers much more than he bargained for. Set in in 1994 in Gatton, Queensland, the story quickly moves from the drug-fuelled aimlessness of student life into much darker territory.

Things go wrong very quickly for Nate, and the pace ramps up even more as he tries to put things right and save his own life. Flashbacks to Nate’s earlier life show how the past has contributed to his current predicament.

Iain Ryan has vividly rendered Nate’s world in gritty detail, and I was swept along from the start. He has captured the 1990s, when the internet was in its infancy and students managed to find parties and drugs without mobiles. Despite the drugs and violence, it was, in some ways, a more innocent world, and the uni librarian’s explanation to Nate of how internet porn and chatrooms work seems old-fashioned, although faithful to the time. This compelling read offers an insight into the darker aspects of Australian rural life.

Reviewed by Melinda Woledge