Author(s): Felicity McLean

Fiction

A striking, savagely incisive and spirited contemporary reimagining of the Ned Kelly story, from critically acclaimed author of The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone, Felicity McLean. From award-winning writer and journalist Felicity McLean, comes Red, a spirited, sharp, snarling and striking contemporary retelling of the Ned Kelly story - but in this tale, Ned is a young girl, a flaming redhead named Ruby McCoy, aka Red, from the Central Coast of NSW, and definitely from the wrong side of the tracks... Red's smart, she can't help it. Just as Sid, her dad, can't help being the most inept small-time crim the Central Coast has ever seen, always in trouble with the law. And while the McCoys have got nothing, less than nothing, Red's got dreams and ambitions to get out of the Central Coast and make something of her life. But when big-bellied Senior Sergeant Healy starts sniffing around the McCoy family business, that's when the trouble starts. Told in Red's vivid, inimitable and immersive voice, Red is a little bit True Grit, a little bit Blue Murder. It's the story of up close and personal police persecution, a story of small crimes and big corruption, of dodgy deals and even dodgier cars. A sharp and savagely funny novel, Red asks: if Ned Kelly was a smart-mouthed girl from a dodgy small-crim family always in trouble with the law - how would her story end today? 'A striking new voice in Australian fiction' Adelaide Advertiser