Dramatic novel, set in Redfern. On the surface there's not much to distinguish Tim's life from any other on the fringe-where dope, booze and women are his pleasure as well as his pain. He has his family in the busy, and the lives of his city friends are transacted in the face of poverty and police harassment. It is only in Tim's relationship with the Old Man that we glimpse another and little known world where the rules are different. Tim seeks the company of the Old Man, his teacher of the tribal ways and traditional assassin, who eventually asks Tim to kill also. The author is a winner of the David Unaipon Award.