Gav thinks he's got it all. A thriving crop of some of the most stupefying marijuana plants growing in his basement, a steady cash flow, his adoring girlfriend Julie and his best friend from school, Wayne, both close at hand to keep the good times rolling. Life is pretty good.

That is, until the day Wayne beats the crap out of him, steals his girlfriend, his car, a large chunk of cash and the entire crop of weed and takes off. Hurt and humiliated he makes it to hospital to get put back together, but it's the burning need for revenge that lingers longer than any physical pain.

As a small-time producer of major quality product, Gav has some heavy-hitting contacts, the most dangerous of which is a stand-over merchant known as Biggsy. Accompanying Biggsy whenever he visits Gav are a couple of his lieutenants who specialise in collecting his taxes and, failing that, cracking a few skulls of those who fail to meet their obligations. It's one of these guys, Bill, to whom Gav now turns. Bill's always been big on talk about the horrors he has inflicted in the service of Biggsy. Surely, then, he'll help Gav out by hunting down his former best friend and girlfriend for him and killing them.

Bill agrees to the deal, although the initial price of $10,000 is adjusted to a more suitable agreement, the only problem remaining is that he has never actually killed anyone before and doesn't particularly relish the prospect of starting now. But he's had enough of being Biggsy's lackey and this is as good an opportunity as any to get out from under.

For their part, Wayne and Julie mindlessly head west with no particular destination in mind. From virtually the first moment of their flight Julie has the uneasy feeling that she may have made a huge mistake. Although Gav tended to ignore her and leave her to her own devices too often, at least he seemed reasonably rational. Wayne on the other hand has started to behave seriously erratically and is shooting up speed at an alarming rate. It doesn't take long to find out that her feeling of unease is well justified.

So out into the brutal Australian desert everyone roars, fuelled by speed, briefly mellowed by top quality ganga and alarmingly under prepared for the conditions.

What follows is a violent flight through some of the most inhospitable countryside Australia has to offer meeting a variety of weird and wonderful characters ranging from lonely desert rats to pig-shooting farm boys and a bunch of dope-head hippies. The fate of Wayne looks grim, that of Julie even more so and Bill, following along behind is just flat out trying to survive. In fact, even Gav, back home in Sydney is doing it a little tough and starting to regret his decision to go the hit-man route.

This is an unashamedly tough story bursting with belligerence and aggression, totally confident and demanding to be read. There is a manic quality to the first half tearing off at a hundred miles an hour before we're given a chance to stake stock and try to figure out where we're headed. A more controlled, almost restful feeling takes over the second half of the book resulting in a certain loss of momentum.

Appropriately, if the plot of the first half of the book comes off as strange, the second is even stranger.

Smith's prose is a little rough around the edges, light on in depth of character and falling over itself in a bid to pack a powerful wallop. It's quite effective, putting us firmly in mind of the drug affected Wayne and Julie, not to mention most of the people they meet. However, when the story begins to cool a rather large feeling of unreality creeps in, complete with vague suggestions of supernatural behaviour and enigmatic characters that float into and out of the scene without ever really being explained.

A rather safe ending left me a little disappointed, expecting a finale to match the fiery opening. What we get is a feel-good whimper that tends to let down all that has gone before it. Be that as it may, Stranger is an off-beat debut that heralds an emerging Australian author who has shown is prepared to forge off into seldom explored waters.