Tigerfish brims with the threat of violence. Located on the fringe of a neglected development site, the suburb is shrouded by dark space. There are urban legends of bodies and death. Faceless figures stalk the land. This growing sense of unease turns to panic as the reader grows more and more sure that the characters are in imminent danger. The violence, though, is never fully realised; it dissipates into tentative truces and a few somewhat hastily resolved scenarios. On the one hand, this feels like a retreat by the author, perhaps a reluctance to commit to the violent potential of the book and its characters. On the other, the decision to turn away from the expected climax mirrors the characters themselves, giving weight to the idea that lives are not predetermined by setting or circumstance, and that people have the potential to make surprising choices.

What makes Tigerfish wonderful is the strength of its characters and their ability to veer away from the norm. It is this ability to surprise, to challenge presumptions, that pushes this book beyond just another coming-of-age story and into the raw, fraught immediacy of the contemporary teenager.