The Student

A high-paced, hardboiled regional noir: fresh, gritty, unnerving, with a stark and lonely beauty.Do bad people look like good people, like friends and brothers and boyfriends and students, until they have their hands around your throat? All of these men standing around me, drinks in hand, backs to this screen… smiling, laughing, flirting, and they look harmless. But any one of them could be something else now: rapist, murdered, spree shooter, torturer, paedophile. I try to picture them sprayed with blood and gore and it’s easy. I can do it, mentally. All of these guys could be him because all of these guys were just like him, right up until he…Gatton, Queensland. 1994. Nate is a student, dealing weed on the side. A girl called Maya Kibby is dead. No one knows who killed her. Nate needs to refresh his supply, but Jesse, his friend and dealer, is missing. Nate is high. He is alone. Being hunted for the suitcase he’s found and haunted by its contents. And as things turn from bad to worse, Nate uncovers far more than he bargained for.About the authorIain Ryan grew up in the Brisbane suburbs. At the age of seventeen he moved to Gatton (Qld) to attend university. Following a short stint in property economics, Ryan pursued his interest in music and for a number of chaotic (and fun) years performed as a touring musician. Feeling burnt out and on the advice of his therapist, he started writing fiction. In 2015, his first novel, Four Days was published and in 2016 it was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. He lives in Melbourne.