Suzanne Leal

When I got the blurb for this book, I thought I can't possibly read a book that takes place entirely in an elevator.

But I found I could.

We love a good literary conceit.

Again, it's a crime thriller and it's set in an elevator, but the backstory is about a group of people who work in one of those very difficult merchant bank legal organisations where everyone is on the take.

Yes, yes.

So the beginning, five people who are caught in an elevator that stops.

Yeah.

It's terrific.

And what I'm reading, I'm doing by audiobook at the moment, The Opal Dragonfly by Gillian Leatherdale, which is, look, I don't know how he would describe it, but it's really historical, almost romance, historical romance, a bit like the Jean Plady books of my childhood.

Colonial Sydney, set in 1852.

And as an audiobook, it's...

Look, I'm really enjoying it.

I'm completely lost in the time and this very colonial language that he uses.

So 1850s.

A lot of books, actually 600 all in all.

There's a number of panels, but I think in the fiction alone there was almost 200.

Wow.

And there's also a lot for the non-fiction panel.

Does that mean you had to read them all?

Look, I must say, as a senior judge, what I do is oversee what are 10, sometimes 11 panels.