rort: /rɔːt/ noun INFORMAL•AUSTRALIAN/NZ: a fraudulent or dishonest act

In this gritty contemporary novel set in Australia, an ex-con, his paraplegic accomplice and her one-eyed dog roam the streets of Brisbane's West End, each looking for a way out. 

Dan Dyer emerges from 15 years in jail for a murder he didn't commit, with a gangland debt he can't possibly repay. Dan has forgotten what it’s like to be normal. To wake up in the morning and have to decide for himself what to do with his day. To live without walls and routines and schedules and the familiar gallery of psychopathic warders and sociopathic prisoners to navigate every hour. 

So Dan checks into the eclectic, eccentric Best End Hotel, whose unique selling point is it offers ex-prisoners a room, board and transition services in a familiar ‘prison-like environment’. Best End finds Dan a disability carer job looking after sixteen-year-old Denise O’Hare, a girl made paraplegic after a car accident, who has specifically approached Best End to offer the job to an ex-prisoner. Dan figures she’s got save-the-world delusions. 

He couldn't be more wrong.

Written with a laconic, deadpan wit, ‘Best End Hotel’ is a rambunctious novel about new beginnings, and how sometimes revenge is a dish best served in a dog food bowl.