Martin and Terry are brothers. Terry is the more popular of the two, although Martin is smarter upstairs in the brains department. They both fall for the same girl – Caroline, but she only falls for one of them, and it isn’t Martin.

After falling in with a bad lot, Terry takes on a successful life of crime. And Martin hates him for it. It’s not long before Terry reaches a manic level of notoriety in his homeland of Australia.

One of the members of Terry’s gang, Harry West, decides to write The Handbook of Crime; a thorough and technically savvy intro into the world of crime, for anyone interested. Harry asks Martin’s help to get it published, which he succeeds in doing. The problem is, the publisher decides to publish it under a different author’s name, that of Terry Dean.

Years later, Martin’s son Jasper, does a little digging around the Dean family tree, where he drags up all manner of surprising truths. These revelations knock him for six, as he pieces together not only his father’s history, but his own relationship with him too.

This is the debut novel by Steve Toltz. And it’s quite a first novel at that. It’s huge. As in 700 pages-plus huge. What’s easy to ascertain within the first few pages is that Toltz is an engaging writer. However, as more and more pages are turned, another realisation dawns: this is way, way too long.

The book is split into two hefty halves, with the first taking on board the musings of Martin, and the second left to those of his son Jasper. While both certainly have their charm, they soon begin to feel like those friends you invite over for a bit, who soon outstay their welcome. In this case, by several weeks. They mean well enough, but by god you soon yearn to see the back of them.

Someone should have mentioned to Toltz that yes, sometimes less is definitely more. The book certainly could have benefitted from being edited a great deal more, making it a tighter read. In fact, if you do decide to pick it up, perhaps try ripping out every other page; it will make just as much sense and will prevent you from pulling out your eyes in frustration.