Lorraine Peck’s The Second Son is an all out riot of action and ideas that takes us into the dark heart of Sydney.I’m going to try not to use too much in the way of cliches here but The Second Son is the kind of novel that pours petrol on the drama and then dangles a lit match while you squirm.All right, that's enough, let me tell you about it...Among the gangs of Western Sydney Johnny Novak has always played second-fiddle to his brother Ivan. But when Ivan is murdered in his driveway; a professional hit that threatens to ignite a gang war, Johnny will be forced to step up.Johnny’s always played his gang connections close to his chest. He manages the more legitimate parts of the family a choice that makes him weak in his father Milan’s eyes. Now Milan wants Johnny to avenge his brother. It should be a simple eye-for-an-eye but something doesn’t seem quite right...Lorraine Peck’s debut novel is a testosterone charged ride through Sydney and is resplendent with an arsenal of fast cars and weaponry fit for a fast and furious movie. There’s also a lot of riffing on family and the ties that bind and it’s here that Peck really got my interest.Johnny’s father is a real ‘make him an offer he can’t refuse’ kinda guy. And there would be enough in this tension between the family to keep the pages turning except that Peck splits her point of view and gives us interlacing narratives of both Johnny and his wife Amy.Amy is very much not part of the family. She’s the light to his dark and she knows Johnny’s Dad wished he’d married a good Croatian girl. Milan loves his grandson Sacha but is not so sure about Amy. In the tension between Amy’s wish for a normal life and the twisting, interweaving perspectives we have the driving ethos of family first split with Johnny torn in his loyalties.This dynamic plays out particularly well in the fight for Sacha’s future. Both Amy and Johnny are terrified that as the violence gets closer to home that Sacha will inevitably be drawn into the family business.Maybe it’s me but I can’t read (or even watch) violence in an unproblematic way these days. Here in the Second Son the violence always has stakes.Johnny Novak is a hard character to like but we are backed into a corner as the rogues gallery lining up around him look increasingly less appealing. He’s our hero like it or not but as Amy continually reminds us, his choices are putting all their lives at risk.The treatment of women and violence against women also comes in for scrutiny in the Second Son. I’ve gotta say I’d have preferred more vigorous exploration of the ways violence is enacted both physically and through coercive control but the book does explore these forces and gives Amy agency in her story even as she falls victim of many of the mobster wife tropes.The Second Son is a tense and pacey thriller that also makes you think. I’ll admit there were chapters that I finished at a gallop and realised my heart was racing and that’s not something a lot of books make me do.Check out Loraine Peck’s The Second Son; it’s got all the Sydney action we used to enjoy before we had to do our secret back alley exchanges at a social distance.