Halfway House by Helen Fitzgerald

Publisher's Synopsis

On her first shift at a halfway house for violent offenders in Edinburgh – the only job she could get – rebounding Australian expat Lou is taken hostage. For nine long hours, the only people who can help her are the residents. But who can Lou trust? The mum-and-dad-killer, the elderly legless rockstar paedophile, the stammering suicide chat room guy, or the Armani-suited conman?

Slick, darkly funny and nerve-janglingly tense, Halfway House is a breathtaking thriller and an unapologetic reminder: never corner a desperate woman.

My Review of Halfway House by Helen Fitzgerald

Halfway House is a dark comedy that uses the setting of an Edinburgh hostel with a difference as the location for a sharp, though slightly offbeat story. A young Australian woman decides she needs to put a failed relationship behind her and decides a job working the night shift in a halfway house for dangerous offenders out on bail is the perfect opportunity.

Lou O’Dowd is far from perfect, in fact she’s quite adept at making the perfectly wrong decision at the exact wrong time. But it’s her imperfections that drive the story and keep things entertaining. From early in the piece it’s made abundantly clear that Lou is not prone to taking the expected option and it’s precisely the reason why she’s travelled halfway around the world to work in a questionable job that will inevitably place her in danger.

Before she reaches the job, she makes contact with her actor cousin Becks and moves into her flat…along with just about every wannabe actor/entertainer looking for a place to doss. It’s a chaotic environment as her introduction to her new city and when combined with an alcohol-affected jetlag of epic proportions it’s a wonder she stops at only screwing the first eligible man she meets.

Working the night shift in a townhouse with residents who are convicted killers, paedophiles, thieves and drug dealers is always going to bring problems. Lou’s the kind of person who believes she can meet those problems head on, the fact she’s working in a specialist position with no training or experience provides us with a great hint of where things might lead. But she’s already shown she’s reckless and at the first dropping of her guard things spiral crazily out of control.

Halfway House is graced (or doomed) by an eclectic mix of unwholesome wrong-uns who should never have been released. This random mish-mash of human detritus are wonderfully conceived for their weirdness and, together, they create the distinct impression that they’re about to unleash. 

For her part, Lou’s a very complicated character and not in a good way. You want to be on her side but she makes it very difficult. She’s selfish and judgemental, unapologetic in her attitudes and is terribly prone to lousy decision making.

This is a black comedy that may leave you feeling slightly uncomfortable and it winds up developing into a screwball comedy as bad situations become maddeningly worse. If you’re happy enough to enjoy high farce as events spiral out of control with seemingly no chance of redemption then this is going to hit the mark.

Personally, I enjoyed the madness and embraced the strangeness of the characters, the themes are dark but it all remained consistently entertaining.