Three young Irish people have come to Australia, running from the economic ruins of their home country & their own unhappy lives. In this promised l&, stunned by the heat & the vast arid space of the interior, they each try to escape their past in a chaotic world of backpacker hostels, huge fruit farms & squalid factories, surrounded by new friends who are even more damaged & dangerous than they are themselves. Endless supplies of cheap drink & drugs loosen what little sense of responsibility they have, & a spiral of self-destructive behaviour forces each of them to face up to the reality of their lives. This is a story of the consequences of impulsive choices & of the places where they lead. A vulnerable young man is left alone by his friends in a remote wilderness; a desperate girl puts herself into the hands of violent sex traffickers; a once-privileged favourite son lets a drunken quarrel escalate to murder. An utterly compelling, readable novel that hooks from the first page & immerses us in an all-too topical nightmare.