Cassie McCullough

So while Jasper Jones was set, as you said, in a fictional country town, this new one is set in contemporary Perth and Fremantle.

It's a first person story, centres on 15 year old Sam, who's had a pretty tough upbringing, not much money.

At times he's had to steal food to have enough to eat.

And Sam's mum, who calls him Honey Bee, or she does sometimes, and he really liked that.

But Cassie, we meet this boy on a bridge, high up on an overpass.

What happens that night?

The story opens.

Yes, it's an opening that's quite stark and dramatic, it's night and young Sam is on the wrong side of the railings on this overpass and he's considering jumping and he's there thinking about it for a while and then he sees the orange glow of a cigarette and he realises there's someone else there.

This is in the first few pages.

It's a guy called Vic.

He's in his 70s.

And he, too, has come to the overpass with the same intention.

So this is the opening moment.

It's a pretty arresting moment, but it also sets up the relationship between these two characters, the teenage boy, the old man.

We don't know why either of them are there, but they sort of save each other, which is an ongoing theme for the book.

But Vic drops Sam off at a train station, not knowing that Sam's got nowhere to go.

And they find each other again the next night.

And this time Sam stays with the old man.

They start to share each other's stories.

And we discover that Vic's wife, Edith, had died.