Nick Harris has been drifting for years -- until the day he finds himself amid red dirt and razor wire, a refugee-prison guard in a detention centre. Nick is no crusader and no bleeding-heart. He's just a man in debt who needs a job. Time passes slowly behind the wire, no matter who you are. To distract themselves, the asylum seekers tell Nick about their lives and cultures, and the families they have left behind. They steal from him with good humour, and swear at him with bad. Nick breaks all the rules: slacking off when he guards the cordial machine, swimming with crocodiles, brawling with locals, romancing workmates. And then there is the cardinal sin -- becoming friends with the detainees. The novel is a realistic window into the hidden world of immigration detention centres, drawn from the experience of a former guard. It is one man's vision, looking through the wire at the people locked inside our desert prisons, and looking out at the people who put them there. Alien detention centers -- Australia -- Fiction. | Detention of persons -- Australia -- Fiction. | Inmate guards -- Fiction. | Refugees -- Fiction. | Australian fiction. | Australian