Of these three début novels, John Honey’s Paint is by far the richest: the only one that has the feel of a world turning as its pages ever more rapidly must be turned. Honey has created characters that matter to the reader and offers a truly immersive reading experience.

Laying it on thick is a vivid theme in the novel, whether what’s being laid on is paint, food, wine, drama, passion or bullshit. The central character, Kevin Goodenough (otherwise known as Boris), is a painter and a Vietnam veteran who lives in a self­-built house and studio in the bush outside Hobart. He paints in vivid, frantic spurts, and the paintings now driving these spurts, a series of war paintings, are the best he has ever done. Boris is depicted as a brilliant painter with no head for business, an artist who cares less about the future of a completed work than about getting a work of art onto canvas. Enter Ferret Wherret, a dealer so unscrupulous that to say much more would infringe on the thrill of reading just what Ferret has pulled off this time, and with whom.