Introduction; PART I: Family Matters; The Passenger / Kirsten Tranter -- The Birthday present / Mandy Sayer -- Good boy, bad girl / John Dale -- In the dunes / Eleanor Limprecht -- In the court of the lion king / Mark Dapin PART II: Sex And The City; -- The Transmutation of sex / Leigh Redhead -- The Patternmaker / Julie Koh -- Toxic nostalgia / Peter Polites -- The Razor / Robert Drewe PART III: Criminal Justice -- Rip-Off / Tom Gilling -- Slow burn / Gabrielle Lord -- Black cul-de-sac / Philip McLaren -- Chinaman's beach / P.M. Newton -- Good bloke / Peter Doyle. About the Contributors; Acknowledgments
Summary, etc.:
Nothing lasts in Sydney, especially good fortune: lives are upturned, shops are sold, roads dug up, trees and houses knocked down, premiers discarded, and entire communities relocated in the name of that economic mantra--growth and progress. Just when you think the traffic can't get any worse and the screech of the 747s descending over your roof can't get any louder, along comes a wild electrical storm that batters the buildings and shakes the power lines and washes the garbage off the streets and you stand, sheltered under your broken brolly in the center of Sydney, admiring this big beautiful city. What never changes, though, is the hustle on the street. My father was a detective in the vice squad shortly after the Second World War, and he told stories of busting SP bookies in Paddington and Surry Hills, collaring cockatoos stationed in the laneways of South Sydney, and arresting sly-groggers. Policing back then was hands-on for the poor and hands-off for the rich. Crime and Sydney have always been inseparable: a deep vein of corruption runs beneath the surface of even its most respectable suburbs.
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