Good Money, by JM Green

Stella Hardy is a burnt out social worker in Melbourne’s western suburbs. When the son of a client is murdered and her next-door neighbour disappears, Stella finds herself pulled into a murky world of high finance and low-life drug dealers. Along the way she has to deal with her dysfunctional family, consider a potential new lover with his own dark secrets and repair an old friendship with a cop who could be helpful. The setting is refreshing, but there is a lot of unnecessary detail of local streets, landmarks and directions. The action zips along, but the characters are curiously flat and the role of coincidence in the plot is hard to swallow. Some of the writing, particularly around the family relationships, is striking in its clarity and precision. There is a lot to like about the book, but there is too much reliance on action over credibility and Green tries a bit too hard for entertaining and quirky and it doesn’t quite come off.