I found this book very enjoyable, with neat throwbacks to the 1980s Melbourne which I knew and loved. The narrator is convincing, and his coming of age story among a bohemian set of art thieves is a pleasure to read. A couple of times, I was slightly confused about the genre (worrying whether the dog being shot, the art fraud, the absent family, the heroin, the murder!!! meant we were heading into gravely serious territory), but overall, the story is a bit Agatha Christie or Midsomer Murders in that no character that you care about gets killed (though I wasn't happy with the dog being injured in such a story!).
I got over these bumps as lightly as I could, and then enjoyed the book more and more as it segued in to a close, where many of my misconceptions were tidied up. I think most readers will thoroughly enjoy this book. ( )

Entertaining, with the special bonus that comes from reading something set in neighbourhoods you know well. The characters are fairly generic - the country kid outcast who falls in with an older, bohemian (and essentially untrustworthy) gang, The older, beautiful (and unavailable) woman, the heroin using artists etc etc. It's a thrilling story (based on real events), nicely told, but it's not hugely memorable. ( )