Amaze Your Friends

Amaze Your Friends is a 1998 Ned Kelly Award-winning novel by Australian author Peter Doyle.

This is book 2 in the author's Billy Glasheen series of novels.

Synopsis
Set in Sydney in the 1950s this novel follows Billy Glasheen as he attempts to raise ten thousand pounds to pay off a corrupt police officer. If he can't make that in six months he'll find himself six feet under.

Critical reception
Damo Gay, writing on the Australian Crime Fiction HQ website noted: "Amaze Your Friends is a dark hardboiled crime story that will take a man and subject him to all manner of adversity. It's set in Sydney as the 1950s are drawing to a close, following the attempts of a small-time hustler to come up with some money as quickly as possible. It's a wild and unpredictable ride through the low-life haunts of the city's drug-dens, dealing with corrupt cops while trying to maintain a string of dodgy mail-order scams...At times it's crude and at others it's graphic, but it's most definitely an entertaining read."

Awards

 * Ned Kelly Awards for Crime Writing, Best Novel, 1999: winner