Problem: in which Australian city do you set a crime story without offending readers from the other cities? Solution: set it in three of them – Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne. This is clever enough, although it soon becomes confusing as to where we actually are, prompting an ‘If it’s Tuesday, this must be Melbourne’ sensation.

You get the feeling that the author has had more than a little exposure to the business of politics. The literary baby-kissing in Dead Set even extends to other constituencies, with complimentary references to South Australian beer (Coopers) and Tasmanian beer (Cascade). For a book so informed by politics, the political message remains ambivalent, which is political in itself.