I suspect if you lived in Melbourne’s inner-north, one of the chief delights of Melinda Houston’s wry novel would be recognising each place she is writing about. There is a particular joy in having your local cafe, park or street acknowledged in a novel. The other delight here is the title: ‘jumps the shark’ refers to that terrible realisation that a project has actually gone right off track – things are now out of control. This is the situation for protagonist Kat Kelly, a TV location scout working on a kind of urban survivor program in the dark alleys of Melbourne. In fact, Kat’s whole life has taken a shift towards the worse and she, a single woman in her early 40s, needs to rectify the situation.

There are no hidden plots in this novel or sage advice for recently single women out there, rather, this is a rollicking journey of local streetscapes told with humour, and directed pointedly at our modern television viewing. Certainly Houston is writing from an insider’s perspective: her day job is as a TV reviewer and I imagine she has witnessed the very best, and worst, of celebrity culture.

An escapist read, if you enjoy the writings of Anita Heiss or Toni Jordan, pick this one up too.

Chris Gordon