Kelly is a skilled writer, and her use of language is sophisticated. Isabel’s narrative moves easily from acidic descriptions of divorce (‘We ... surfed together on a surging sea of bile and bitterness, leaving in our single wake a foul detritus, a jetsam of anger and shame and guilt and betrayal’) to the darkly comic (‘I felt like an insect splattered against the windscreen of the great truck Life’). Indeed, it is Kelly’s control over Isabel’s voice that allows her, midway into the novel, to pull the rug out from under the readers’ feet, uncovering the rotting layers of mystery beneath the deceptive narration.

The strength of this novel is Kelly’s artful yet controlled and understated representation of a woman utterly blind to her own delusions and self-obsession. Isabel is a force to be reckoned with – a charming and articulate narrator – yet, as Kelly subtly reveals, she is as dangerously unreliable as she is fascinating. It is this gradual dichotomy, of Isabel’s self-belief and delusion against the ultimate truth of her circumstances and character, that gives this novel its ingenuity.