The Maskeys

The Maskeys dives deep into the wreckage of family, where love, loyalty, ambition, and revenge collide with electrifying results. Bitingly funny, gloriously feral. CATHERINE CHIDGEY

A small Australian town. The story of an extraordinary family.

Locals see George Maskey as a hollow braggart who is at least partly responsible for the crime and drug-related deaths the town of Naples has seen over the years. His wife blames him for the death of their teenage twins. His gay stepson regards him as a racist homophobe. And Serenade Theadora, the town's famed mystic, sees him in equal parts as good and bad. But George, the family patriarch, is not the star of this story.

When Rodney, the loyal Maskey right-hand man, is kidnapped by service-station proprietor Gayle Reynolds in a bungled revenge against his boss, events are set in train that will see the Maskey family changed forever. Love-starved reader of romance novels, physical runt, dreamer; Rodney has lived in a forest on the Knuckle, tending the Maskey's marijuana plantation since the death of his mother. Gayle regards his capture as an opportunity to learn the whereabouts of her missing son, Duncan: Rodney's childhood best friend. For Rodney, captivity turns his life upside down. He meets Leanne. She is the girl who brings him his meals. And in her, the unattractive young man, who has despaired of ever finding love, sees a person he could risk everything for.

The Maskeys is a thrilling and groundbreaking portrayal of the overlooked, both tender and incisive. From the author of the critically acclaimed Low Expectations.