Fiona Kelly McGregor’s The Trap follows her successful novel Iris (2022), set in the criminal underworld of Sydney during the Great Depression.

In the previous novel, Iris Webber flees the prison of rural poverty for the dubious opportunities of the metropolis. She becomes a prostitute, but gains a measure of independence. Her irascible charm and plucky passion provide the necessary picaresque armour. Beneath this, her basic worth is never allowed to fully collapse, even as she lives hand-to-mouth and at the mercy of the powerful.

Review: The Trap – Fiona Kelly McGregor (Picador)

In The Trap, we stay in this same historical universe, composed with admirable fidelity to the colour of the historical record. But we have moved forward a decade to 1942. The generalised poverty of the Depression is now inflected with the restrictions brought about by war in the Pacific.

Brownouts and curfews, sly grog and black markets, along with an influx of American military personnel, evoke an atmosphere of Sydney under low-level siege. But what offends the convenience of Sydney’s moneyed stratum is less of a problem to the underclass:

most back streets in Darlo and Surro had always been unlit and business for many was pretty much as usual, in fact it was positively booming, brothels and groggeries buzzing with life till the early hours.

most back streets in Darlo and Surro had always been unlit and business for many was pretty much as usual, in fact it was positively booming, brothels and groggeries buzzing with life till the early hours.

McGregor’s novel delights in this Dickensian world of grifters and chancers, crooked cops and witty hookers. It is a world where street wisdom and schemes prevail over public civility and social policy.

Twisted righteousness

The Trap begins by following Ray Sayles, one of the more memorable side-characters from Iris. In the 1930s, he had gained notoriety for performing as “Ada” in the underground club Black Ada’s. Born in Uganda, then part of British East Africa, Ray’s blackness makes him a striking figure in the white Australia of the time. The beauty of a novel, however, is we do not have to........

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